


best behavior

by winchysteria



Series: 2 all the boys i've checked before [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - To All the Boys I've Loved Before Fusion, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Mutual Pining, Romantic Comedy, Trans Female Character, trans lardo, unrequited chowder/nursey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-09-25 19:06:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 55,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17127041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winchysteria/pseuds/winchysteria
Summary: He’s a tall, lean guy with hair that sticks out at a handful of angles but looks good doing it. He kisses Mariam on the cheek. He gives Derek a thousand-watt smile and a jerky wave. He pats Lou’s head, and she doesn’t even get pissed off. He’s Christopher Chow: nicest person alive, handsome hockey player extraordinaire, Mariam’s first serious boyfriend, and probably the love of Derek’s life.—a deeply uncreative To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before AU, because i like indulging myself. we all already know that nursey and dex will hold hands but it’s about enjoying the JOURNEY





	1. we can talk about it

**Author's Note:**

> [here i am on tumblr!](http://winchysteria.tumblr.com/)  
> title from everybody wants to rule the world, because i am Basic  
> thank you so much to [brooks](http://feministfanboi.tumblr.com/) for being the best beta/sounding board/all-around writing ally in the entire world, even though he hasn't seen the movie <3

His hair looks great. Freshly picked, fluffy, tinted rose-golden from the dawn sky. Derek doesn’t have a mirror, but he just knows this.

He’s wearing a white cotton shirt open to the waist, and then a green velvet jacket on top of that, like a sexy pirate. The jacket is also open, but his pants, thank god, are belted up.

When he reaches his hands out to the side, he can feel the blossoms of lavender and buttercups and oversized Queen Anne’s lace. The grass and wildflowers around him are thick and wild, reaching almost up to his hips. That makes it hard to step toward him.

The other man is wearing a blousy cotton shirt as well, but he also has a sword on his right hip that catches the first rays of the barely-risen sun. He moves so gracefully that he hardly knocks the dew off the nearest stalks of long grass. 

“Derek!” he cries, reaching out with soft, moisturized hands.

_ My love _ , Derek wants to say, and he’s leaning forward when the door to his room slams open.

“What are you doing?” Lou asks in that loud kid-voice of hers, like she’s shrieking in an absolute deadpan.

_ Fuck, _ Derek thinks as the daydream slips away.

“Do you  _ want  _ something, Lou?” he asks in a fluster, whirling away from the window to face her. He tries to be subtle as he drops to his knees and fumbles the letter back into the box, but he and Lou both have their dad’s nose and their mom’s nosy streak.

“Dinner’s ready,” she says, in a voice that indicates that she is only pretending to let this go.

“Cool, cool,” Derek replies.

“And  _ Chris _ is here,” she adds.

“Thanks for the update, goodbye,” Derek says, shoving the door closed in her face.

Lou’s only eleven: she has green eyes like Derek, but darker hair. Thankfully, she is not yet five feet tall, and so Derek frantically throws all the letters back in his dad’s old cigar box and shoves it on the highest shelf in his closet. He doesn’t trust Lou as far as he can throw her, which admittedly is probably pretty far. She’s the size of a large paperback.

She can never find the letters.

No one can find the letters, ever. Not even the people they’re addressed to.

Scratch that.

Especially the people they’re addressed to.

 

Mom tries really hard to cook Ethiopian sometimes. It’s sweet. Derek appreciates it more than he can say. Even just the smells coming up the staircase poke at his heart a little. The berbere goes right to the back of his nose, and he’s gotten pretty good at ignoring the burnt smell underneath that.

“Yikes,” Lou mutters as she traipses arhythmically down the stairs behind him.

Their guest opens the door just as the siblings reach the landing, and Derek is foiled in his attempt to give a cool, unaffected wave by Lou crashing into his back. Mariam, thank god, distracts the new arrival before he can realize that Derek is moving like a robot with hemorrhoids; Derek just leans against the railing of the stairs and begs not to be noticed.

He’s a tall, lean guy with hair that sticks out at a handful of angles but looks good doing it. He kisses Mariam on the cheek. He gives Derek a thousand-watt smile and a jerky wave. He pats Lou’s head, and she doesn’t even get pissed off. He’s Christopher Chow: nicest person alive, handsome hockey player extraordinaire, Mariam’s first serious boyfriend, and probably the love of Derek’s life.

 

Dinner is pleasant the way it almost always is. Derek sometimes feels physically overwhelmed by the love he has for his family: his mom, who is a terrible cook and an excellent doctor. His big sister Mariam, who is Derek’s best friend but also a walking, talking day planner-- a hardcover one. His little sister Lou, an absolute shark on the sixth grade social scene, so much like Derek but turned up to about thirteen. Derek, the middle child, is the needy glue between them both.

He sometimes feels like his sisters are defined shapes, while he’s a liquid that forms itself around their edges. It’s not that he doesn’t have a personality or hobbies. He does. He reads and writes more than he sleeps, most days. He runs. It’s just that everything about him can be picked up and taken elsewhere whenever someone else has an important place to be. But Derek believes adamantly that this isn’t a bad thing. Every family has roles, and this-- the relaxed pacifier, the man of the house where you need him-- is his.

Except.

“I can’t believe you’re basically leaving us forever,” Lou says out of nowhere.

Mom is sat at the head of the table to Derek’s right, Chris to Derek’s left, Mariam on Chris’s other side at the foot of the table, and Lou directly across from him. Within kicking distance.

“Ow,” Lou says. She kicks back.

Mariam flips her braids over her right shoulder so she can safely move a bite of Mom’s gummy, overcooked injera to her mouth without spilling on anything important. “It’s not forever, baby. It’s, like, four months.”

She looks at Lou with that soft, mothering look she never wears outside of the house. That’s a Lou-and-Derek exclusive, the way her eyes go down at the outside corners and her lips purse as she inhales. Sometimes she looks at their mom that way, but only when Mom can’t see.

“You’re going to be fine,” she continues. “You’re in middle school. You’re big.”

Lou grumbles under her breath.

Chris, with his track record of perfect sincerity, smiles at her reassuringly with his eyes. Derek’s heart flips over.

“This is delicious, by the way,” he says then, shooting Dr. Nurse an enormous smile.

Okay, almost perfect.

That sincerity is how they all know he means it when he lightly suggests that hey, he could come visit Mariam at Thanksgiving. He’s never been to England. It could be fun.

“That’s an idea, Chris,” Mom replies, smiling first at him and then at Mariam.

Mariam, as a rule, cannot lie. It’s one of the reasons she and Chris get along so well. She tries to work around this quality, but at her core, she is fundamentally incapable of not telling the truth. Not even to be polite.

She smiles, which looks kind of like gritting her teeth, and says, “We can talk about it.”

Maybe it’s the way his own alarm bells go off, and maybe it’s just how well they know each other after eight years of friendship, but Derek is pretty sure he can hear Chris’s heart hit the seat of his dining chair.


	2. the inherent special-ness of christopher chow

Derek wasn’t necessarily a shy kid, but he didn’t make friends at the drop of a hat. Not the way Lou does now. Especially right after losing their dad, he’d spend an hour or two in forced proximity with a kid his age and never initiate anything more significant than “how are you.”

He wasn’t rude, really, and he could speak perfectly well. He just gave the absolute bare minimum in social situations. Whatever wouldn’t embarrass his mom. And it concerned her that he could tell what that was.

He never wanted to keep secrets from her, is how Mariam put it later. Mom would ask how Connor’s birthday party was and Derek would look up at her from his book, say that Connor liked the Transformer and the games were okay, and dive right back into _The Chamber of Secrets_ or _The Golden Compass_ or whatever. He stopped begging to stay when Mom came to pick him up after sleepovers. He wanted to be close to home, close to them, which initially was what you’d expect. After three years of no new friends and no life cultivated outside the family, though, his mom (and Mariam, probably) started to worry.

Then the Chows moved in next door.

Chris (Christo _pher,_ as his mother would yell over the side yard if they weren’t home by dinnertime) was Derek’s polar opposite. Friendly to the point of awkwardness. The first day their mothers suggested they go out to ride bikes together, Chris had toppled back into his front yard with helmet askew an hour later, babbling about how this neighborhood was going to be _great_ and Derek was _awesome_ and he had the _best day ever!_

Derek felt a little campfire start up in his stomach, even though he wheeled his bike away with an unenthusiastic “bye.”

 

It’s like this: Derek had Chris first.

Well, he didn’t _have_ him have him, not the way Mariam somehow still does as they fight with each other in Chris’s car parked in the Chows' driveway. He still looks at her desperately as she gets out, crosses in front of his car to get to the Nurses’ side door, and she does not look back at him.

But the inherent special-ness of Christopher Chow is one of the cornerstones of Derek’s world. And he saw it long before Mariam did.

 

“You’re not really like this around other people,” Chris said, and Derek felt his stomach circumnavigate the globe.

“You didn’t answer the question,” Derek said quickly. “And I don’t know what you mean.”

Chris pouted for a moment, then replied, “Fuck Darth Maul, kill Palpatine, marry Darth Vader. I just think it wouldn’t be that bad being pampered on the Death Star, you know? I feel like Darth Vader wouldn’t be, like, a horndog or whatever.”

Derek nodded. “Maybe he physically can’t even bone.”

He took a long swig of his Vitaminwater. The bleachers weren’t comfortable, exactly, but they felt nice and familiar after a year of eating lunch on them to avoid the cafeteria. They’d been best friends, the kind of no-question best friends you make as a kid, since that first day of bike riding, so when they got to high school, neither of them really felt the need to incorporate themselves into the hierarchy that was so obvious at lunch. Chris had plenty of friends, of course, just because of the way he was, and he was sporty and tall so he did okay with girls. But his hockey team was through a club, not their high school, so he had roughly the same social clout as any of the girls who were deeply into ballet or figure skating. Derek found it ridiculous that not a single person around them was aware of how good Chris was at hockey.

“I just mean,” Chris continued, and Derek wanted to punch them both in the face. “We can talk about whatever. Weird stuff, stupid stuff, anything. But around a lot of people, you kind of read one of your books and log out of a conversation. Obviously, I’m your friend and I love you, so I don’t care, but I think there are a lot of people who want to be friends with you and you don’t let them.”

That was Chris. He loved Derek to a fault. And he’d just say shit like that: completely sincere, completely sappy shit that Derek was terrified by. But because it was Chris, he’d just deliver something utterly lovely into the air without really thinking about it or waiting around to make it weird. Derek could look right at Chris, and Chris never looked away, smiling at him instead. Like he was waiting for Derek to be buoyed up by the sheer magnitude of his belief in him.

Derek found himself unsure what, exactly, was different between his casual friends and his friendship with Chris. He felt the urge to keep Chris from looking at it too hard either.

 

Then Mariam liked Chris.

“He’s just cute,” she’d said to Derek one night. “He’s so adorable and sweet and honestly? The shoulders aren’t bad either.”

Derek surprised himself by agreeing.

And Derek-and-Chris were suddenly over. Not that Chris had wanted Derek to be left out, or Mariam either, but the age of default togetherness definitively ended when Chris started going to new movies with Mariam instead.

They’d gone to see _Jupiter Ascending_ together. Derek had known this because Mariam had told him on the way out the door, and Chris hadn’t mentioned anything to him at all. Derek meant to confront him about it-- not in a needy way, you know, but in a cool and casual one-- but he’d hopped out of the car the next day to see Chris already waiting, watched Chris kiss Mariam on the cheek with gusto, and realized.

He saw one of Chris’s hands land on the small of Mariam’s back and the other on the top of her upper left arm. Derek could see the way his fingers bent and flexed, easy and natural, could feel his own cheeks start to burn, and it was suddenly obvious.

 

Chris is not the first letter, by any means. That distinct honor goes to Kent, from Bent Pines Camp, on whom he had an enormous, first-boner-sized crush. Kent was blond and kind of mean and Derek had imagined the two of them kissing in a canoe in the middle of the lake while Kent said uncharacteristically-nice things to him about how Derek was good at macramé.

All his crushes before-- the ones he’d had on girls-- were bearable. He’d moon over them in class and then tell Mariam everything and, after a sensible amount of time, the feelings would fade. But Kent?

Well, in the first case, Mariam wasn’t here. She was far away at the chemistry camp all the way across the lake. And secondly-- Kent was a boy, wasn’t he. Derek didn’t know who to talk to about that.

So he wrote the first of the letters. Derek had always been kind of a daydreamer, and good with words, so he scribbled down the confusing, big, bumpy things he felt for Kent. He put those things into an envelope, addressed it, stamped it, and then put in in the cigar box that had once belonged to his dad and now contained important things like shells and nice pens and, apparently, notes to the boys he liked.

Kent-- fifth grade-- was followed by Bradley-- seventh. The high-school advisor to his middle-school debate team, a guy with hair down to his shoulders and a handsome, braying way of saying everything. He seemed-- and Derek was aware even then of how ridiculous this was-- that he’d never doubted landing on two feet if he stumbled. Then there was Will-- eighth grade-- a boy with stupid flippy hair and minimal personality who Derek had dreamt about for a week straight after a particular boy-girl party. Then there's one addressed to an Andrew, which Derek had written after homecoming in ninth grade, although some things had changed on that front.

Sometime around the end of their freshman year, Derek had finally told Chris that the crushes he’d always had on girls had happened just about as often on boys.

Chris, predictably, was wonderful. “That’s great!” he’d gushed, squeezing Derek’s torso at an awkward angle, mushing their cheeks together clumsily. “We have so much more to talk about.”

That, Derek assumed, would be the end of the letters.

 

But that day, sophomore year of high school, Derek had rushed home to throw himself on his bed in tears and write one more.

 

_Dear Chris,_

 

_I know that you like Mariam. And girls. I know that we’re best friends, and I don’t want to ever stop being best friends with you. But I like you so much that it seems like I can choose between being around you and breathing._

_Frankly, I will always choose the former._


	3. the forbidden cowboy sex man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> merry christmas!!! tune in next chapter for when will poindexter finally shows up lmao slow burn whomst????

“I broke up with Chris,” Mariam says, tucking herself under Derek’s purple comforter and betraying absolutely no emotion. “Your room is a disaster.”

Derek sits down almost exactly where he’s standing. Just in the right place to lean forward and rest his forehead on the mattress directly below Mariam’s, close enough to grab her right hand in both of his and press it. He does not feel like he can stand up.

“Just like that?” Derek says, voice dipping into a whisper. 

Mariam glances down at him. She has Dad’s eyes exactly, round and coffee-brown, and her long eyelashes are clumped together like she’s been crying. “No,” she replies quietly, her usual hardcover expression loosening a little bit. Derek has never been sure if she’s very good at hiding her feelings or if she genuinely has them less often. “Not just like that. I’ve been thinking about it for, I don’t know, months? He’s--”

She stops and shakes her head a little, sniffs.

Derek looks at their hands and tries to collect his thoughts, playing with the silver spinner ring she always wears on her middle finger. “Okay,” he says, putting on the closest possible approximation to neutral that he can manage right now. “Uh. Why? If you wanna talk about it.”

_ Do you not love him anymore? _ is what he really wants to ask. Mariam takes a second to really answer, and she breathes deeply through her nose but does not break eye contact with Derek. “It’s going to be so hard to move away from you,” she starts. “You know that, right?”

Derek feels tears threaten at the outside corners of his eyes. He doesn’t think he can really even whisper at this point without his voice breaking, so he just squeezes Mariam’s hand.

She blinks quickly. “Even if it’s just for college, it’s going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’m going to be thinking about you guys constantly. So Chris-- you know how Dad used to say that whatever you’re doing isn’t worth it-”

“If it’s only halfway,” Derek finishes with her. 

“I love Chris so much,” she continues. “But it’s going to be hard enough to be in Melbourne thinking about you and Mom and Lou still over here, and I think if I have Chris here too, I can’t even give it a real chance, you know. I'll just always be miserable and missing somebody.”

Derek just nods, because all of his speech options are questions like: you’ll stop loving him then? Just like that? Is that how that works? He glances away from her and sees their reflections, lamp-golden, in the dark of his bedroom window. Mariam’s eyes are closed, and he watches her chest rise and fall slowly. She’s right about his room, Derek realizes. The carpet is invisible under a layer of books and clothes and notebooks, but at least it means that the letters he'd been reading are barely noticeable where they're shoved under the bed.

“Are you good?” he asks. He can see window-Mariam shake herself back into order.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she says, sitting up and letting go of Derek’s hand so she can wipe quickly under her eyes and nose. “Anyway. I got together a bunch of my old stuff to take to Goodwill.”

“Ooh, anything I’d want?” Derek asks, relieved to be out of the emotional woods.

She sniffs and reaches down to gently whap the back of his head. “No, I mean you should do it too. I even brought you a box. Get rid of some of your shit, D.”

He stands and flops dramatically onto his unmade bed, face-first. “Nope, sorry, I need all of this.”

“Even that pile of steamy Viking books?” Mariam says, poking him in the sides.

Derek groans loudly.

“I mean it, Derek Malik,” she says. “You’re the big kid now. Set a good example for Lulu. Eat breakfast. Don’t stay up all night reading _ The Forbidden Cowboy Sex Man _ or whatever. And keep your room clean. It’s buried in crap. Derek.”

She waits to be acknowledged. He reluctantly cracks an eye open, and she reaches out to put her palm on his forehead.

“I don’t want you to keep burying _yourself_ in all this, either. Make eye contact with some people. Try new things. Make new friends. Maybe get a girlfriend or a boyfriend or something. You have two more years before college, and they can be full of good things.” She massages his temples gently. “Promise me you’ll at least try to open up.”

“I promise,” he says softly. He means it.

“I’m going to worry about you anyway,” Mariam says, spinning neatly and pushing herself off Derek’s bed. “But you can at least give me fun things to worry about.”

She’s halfway down the hall when Derek yells, “ _ The Forbidden Cowboy Sex Man _ is great literature!”

 

The ride to the airport is quiet, which is pretty rare for the Nurse family. Lou has her headphones in. Mariam checks for passport, phone, wallet, tickets on an endless loop. Derek buries himself in  _ Carry On  _ and tries to ignore the crushing knowledge that Mariam is really going to be gone.

“Hey, you packed your Goodwill box,” Mariam says as Derek pulls her big suitcase out of the back of the car.

“Just for you,” he says.

 

Derek wants wants Mariam to go to college and learn cool things and be happy. But he also wants her to stay here with him forever and never go to college and always give him advice and scratch his head.

He considers saying this aloud as they wheel her bags past the Cinnabon.

At the terminal, Mom drags Lou away to a stand to get some candy Mariam probably won’t eat on the plane. It’s busy, and they’re left standing next to a noisy group of what looks like volleyball players chaperoned by a few exhausted parents. Derek’s lip wobbles as his sister gives him that mothering look, one hip popped out to correct for the duffel bag on her right shoulder, then holds out her arms for him.

He breathes in deeply as they hug. She smells like strawberry lotion and feels surprisingly small, and Derek is disoriented as he always is when he remembers that he outgrew her a couple of years ago. He squeezes his eyes closed and feels the first tear drop down to his chin.

Not for the first time, Derek wonders how he’ll manage with no Mariam to lean on. Everybody, Mom and Lou included, know that this will hit Derek the hardest. They’re not even two full years apart; people thought they were twins for most of elementary school. She knows him better than anyone in the world. She’d tried to smuggle him onto the bus with her on her first day of kindergarten. When Dad died, they were five and just barely seven, and Mariam had been tall enough to rest her chin on his head when they cried.

There are some things that nobody is really built to withstand, and Mariam and Derek survived those things together.

“You really had to go to the other side of the world, huh?” he says, tears obvious in his voice.

“We’ll FaceTime,” she promises. “I’ll send you pictures of all the lizards I see.”

They rock gently side to side, the way you do when you really can’t think about letting go of somebody yet. He rests his cheek on top of her head and sees their mom and Lou coming back. 

Neither of them say anything. Mom isn’t a big-emotional-display kind of person, but she clamps onto both of them so tight that Derek feels his back crack. When Lou barrels into the group hug, she almost knocks everybody over.

“I love you guys,” Mariam says, muffled somewhat by the layers of arms. “Okay, now everybody let me go so I have time to sit down and put my shoes back on after the security line.”

They finally let her go, and she tries to regain her composure as she rearranges her carry-on bags. Passport, phone, wallet, tickets. She breaks into a huge grin, despite her red eyes, before turning around to face the gate. Like an adventurer on the brink of something exciting.

“She’s gonna be just fine,” Mom says, looping one arm each around Derek and Lou as they watch Mariam disappear.

Derek laughs, throat still raw. “Yeah, obviously, but are  _ we _ ?”


	4. safari neo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's very very minor homophobia in this chapter. like mild junior high homophobia. also, i am 6k words into this fic and only 12 minutes into the movie fjalskdjglkdsjf

He comes pretty near to starting his first day of junior year in a full-body cast.

“Derek?” his mom yells from the kitchen. “You still breathing, bud?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m cool,” he calls back, head pointing toward the foyer floor and feet resting on the landing where he’d tripped over-- air? Sometimes his body just decided it’d rather be horizontal, and he had yet to successfully refuse.

His mom rounds the corner with a Greek yogurt in her hand. “Move your fingers and toes,” she orders, and Derek obliges.

“I’m fine,” he says.

“Sounded like you dropped a rack of bowling balls down the stairs there, hon,” she comments, leaning on the stair railing over him. Derek pulls himself up with all the grace of Bambi on an icy pond, and when he finally reaches standing, she dusts his shoulders off for him. “Good thing we got you that new phone case. Lou’s already out front for the photo.”

Derek has a familiar crisis as he holds up the piece of printer paper that says “11th Grade” and smiles for the camera. He feels like he ran out of time this summer to make some kind of big important change in himself, or even to commit to one. Is he taller than last year? Bulkier? Smarter? More sociable? He doesn’t know how to tell. All he is aware of his that he is using last year’s backpack, because he can feel the straps on his shoulders; that he has a fresh palm-sized Moleskine notebook in his front right pocket for quiet moments, like he has done every year for the past ten; and that he did not forget breakfast, but the peanut butter granola bar in his left hand is not a Mariam-approved way to start the day. Derek feels totally nebulous, only made real by the things pushing down or in on him.

“You look so sweet, you guys,” his mom says. “Lulu, can you please make a normal face? For one second.”

This is, as always, a hopeless request.

“Do I _have_ to ride to school with Derek?” Lou pouts as soon as the photo op is over.

“Do you want to get to school at all?” their mom asks.

Lou opens her mouth.

Dr. Nurse sighs. “Don’t answer that.”

 

Derek thought long and hard about his outfit today. It’s pretty cold for a September day in Chicago, so the thin trench coat over his t-shirt and jeans made sense this morning. Now, as he winds his way through the juniors’ hallway, he thinks it might have been a mistake; he’s unsure if people are looking at him a regular amount or too much.

Chris, who’s halfway hiding behind his locker door, is the first to offer him a half-smile and a meek wave. He still looks distraught, an unfortunate side effect of the usually-delightful way he wears his heart on his sleeve. It sucks to see, and he can’t imagine how he’d start a conversation. _Sorry, Mariam_ , he thinks as he pulls his notebook out to start doodling or jotting down ideas or, honestly, doing anything but actually greeting people he hasn’t seen in months and still doesn’t know how to talk to.

It’s probably karma that he runs into a narrow wall of indignation and blonde hair.

“Oh, whoops, I’m sorry,” he says-- calm voice locked and loaded-- as he turns to see who his victim was.

“Derek Nurse,” she says waspishly. “So glad I ran _into_ you.”

March Austen is the captain of the Hoffeldt High women’s volleyball team, the world’s most accomplished ice queen, and currently sizing Derek up with an eye as sharp and dead as a shark running a poker game. Formerly, she was also Derek’s first girl friend-- not girlfriend, mind you, but friend who was a girl. They’d sat next to each other on the school bus between the ages of eight and thirteen, at which point there’d been a mysterious falling-out between them (mysterious even and especially to Derek), and March had left him for greener, more popular pastures.

“You’re starting off the year on an interesting foot with that jacket, huh, Safari Neo?” she says, with that squinched-up smile of a white girl who really, really hates you.

Derek smiles back widely, with every single one of his teeth. She’s funny. Kind of the worst part is that he remembers why they were friends. “Aw, thanks, man. I was feeling kind of nervous about it, but your support means the world.”

“Okay, _I_ support this,” someone cries from behind Derek.

Denice, but more often Ford, comes skidding around the corner, lifts Derek’s arm, and tucks herself under it. “Hi March!” she says. “Isn’t Derek’s outfit just giving you _life?_ I fixed up this coat myself.”

Ford is five foot even of pure unadulterated best friend. She is also March’s cousin-- or first cousin once removed, or step-cousin, or something. Her cousin April’s mom married March’s dad back in like first grade. Her relation to the situation doesn’t mean she despises March any less-- in fact, she hates her in a more powerful and specific way than Derek ever has.

“Speaking of clothing I altered, how are those jeans working for you, Marchie?” she asks.

March simpers.

“It was such a fun challenge to take that much space out of the rear panels!” Ford continues blithely. “I’ve never had to get rid of so much butt room before. They really do fit beautifully on your flat little--”

“Hey, babe,” someone booms from their right, and Derek thinks that if he prayed really hard, the ground would swallow him up.

A redheaded iceberg of pure jock energy reaches around March from behind and kisses her temple. “Oh hel _lo_ there,” March says with her Splenda-iest voice. She snuggles back into his (admittedly decent) arms with a self-satisfied look, making eye contact with Derek instead of looking up at Will.

You know, Will. Will Poindexter. Non-recipient of Derek’s third letter and the first boy to ever make him cry.

 

Now, he’s a six-foot freckled A.C. Slater type who reportedly carries the entire varsity soccer team on his back. Then, he was about nine inches shorter and still just as ginger, and he had a pipsqueak version of the absolutely bland athlete personality he bears now. His primary claim to fame, at least in Derek’s world, had been that he was the object of his friend March’s affections. He just happened to sit next to Derek in the Spin the Bottle circle at one of their very first boy-girl parties.

The rules of the game usually prevented situations like that one. You were supposed to sit boy-girl, boy-girl, so that if a girl spun the bottle and it landed on a girl, you’d just automatically kiss the boy sitting closest to where the bottle pointed. But Jenny Hamlin had stood up for just a moment to get another Sprite when Derek spun the bottle and it landed squarely on Will.

He was kind of twerpily cute, even at twelve, with both the round face and the floppy haircut of Porky from _Little Rascals_ . He gave off an intense boy-ness that was totally insurmountable to Derek. _What do I do?_ He mouthed to March, who was one of those friends that always seemed to have an answer for these things.

“I guess you’ll just re-spin, right?” she said, asking the circle at large more than Derek himself. Some of the other guys, though, had started hooting and heckling them both, and the chants seemed to be evenly divided between a long, rising “gaaaay!” and a brief one-two “PU-ssy! PU-ssy!”

“You guys are dumb,” Derek had said evenly as he reached forward to spin the bottle again.

Then he’d felt the sudden damp pressure of a pair of lips on his left cheek, quick as a hummingbird, and turned to see a tense-looking Will Poindexter retreating back to his seat. It was the first, and, to date, the only time that Will had ever surprised him.

“What?” he’d said, brow grumpily shoved down over his eyes. “You guys are just wimps.”

Derek beat a hasty retreat to the party’s back porch, where he cried for reasons he didn’t really understand.

March was furious. Derek, of course, was hopelessly in love for the next three months or so. He used to replay that cheek kiss on a loop as he fell asleep every night, then clam up completely when he saw Will at school.

So yes. That party. That Will.

 

“Denice, Derek,” he says to each of them with a nod and a lukewarm smile.

“We were just having a fun conversation about Derek’s _Ghostbusters_ flasher coat,” March says, to which Will’s brow furrows in a familiar way. “But I think the people we actually like are over on that end of the hallway?”

She strides away without looking back, and Derek kind of envies the utter conceit it takes to believe that your boyfriend is just going to follow you wherever you go. Will looks uncomfortable, but he’s also clearly not new to the role of the smoother-over. “Sorry,” he says. “She’s stressed about some stuff right now.”

“Mm, I understand,” Derek replies. “Have you considered putting her in rice until her horns and tail go away?”

Will half-laughs, then immediately looks guilty, glancing after March like a puppy that slipped its collar at the dog park. He gives Derek and Ford a polite little nod, mutters “sorry” one more time, and spins to follow her into the teeming sea of Forever-21-coated bodies.

“Ford, did you know you’re the only good person on this whole earth?” Derek asks, turning them both in the direction of their homeroom.

She tilts her head like she’s thinking about it, and the ends of the scarf she’s used to tie back her hair flop to the left like bunny ears. “Um, yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> he's finally here!!! and so is march, who i know we have literally 0 information on from canon but the comic only has so many ladies. sidenote, how dope is it that there are so many important female characters in To All the Boys I've Loved Before that i had to start making OCs? anyway, i'm gonna try my best not to make march just a girl-shaped hole to throw hatred in.
> 
> if anyone's curious, derek is wearing an aggressively gen z 90s dad outfit. like probably mom jeans and a button-down shirt with a pattern that looks like a bowling alley carpet tucked into those jeans and then a black belt and like. white sneakers? you know what i'm talking about.


	5. chill or cool or whatever dude

Halfway through the first day of school, Derek concedes that Mariam may have had a point about making new friends. He slips into School Derek easily, who is a person that doesn’t particularly care that he walks into every one of the first four classes to see no one he really knows. He doesn’t go to an enormous school, and he mostly knows who everyone in his classes are; he just isn’t really friends with any of them. In second period AP U.S. History, he nods casually at Will Poindexter, and then he walks to the back of the room-- like he does with every other class he has-- to sit next to the nearest available reclusive art kid. He gets to class early every time, and he immediately pulls out his Moleskine to scribble down whatever he can think of.

It’s unfortunate, then, that he can’t find Ford at lunch.

He’s not unpopular, in that he doesn’t think a lot of people hate him. They just don’t really have any feelings about him at all. He doesn’t have an automatic group of people like everyone in the cafeteria seems to. That’s fine by Derek, or at least he thinks it is; it also means he doesn’t really know where to go without Ford around. 

 

They met that night. The Night Of Will Poindexter. She’d been curled up in the living room of her cousin April’s house-- never much for parties-- quiet enough that Derek hadn’t noticed her on his way outside. He was already bawling like a baby by the time she came out to join him.

“You okay?” she’d said.

He just looked over at her and nodded, then gave himself away by wiping his nose with his hand. When tears started coming down again, she’d walked over and put her arm around his waist. “That’s disgusting,” she’d said matter-of-factly when a glob of snot fell onto the porch railing.

He just shrugged.

“You’re Derek, right?” she asked after a few minutes.

He nodded. It was warm out, early June. The porch was blessedly screened in, but they could hear the bugs buzzing around near the lights on the outside of the pillars. March and April lived on a man-made lake in an upscale subdivision, and the wind-made ripples of the water splashed weakly onto the equally man-made beach in her backyard.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Ford said. “I expected at least one person to cry tonight, but I would never have guessed it’d be you.”

“What do you mean,” Derek choked out.

Ford sucked on her teeth, considering. “Well, you’re not exactly the most-- emotional guy. Like, no matter what happens, it’s  _ chill _ or  _ cool _ or  _ whatever, dude _ .”

“Yeah, normally, I guess,” he replied.

“You wanna talk about it?” she asked.

“Absolutely not,” he said, and they stood there in the quiet and the buzzing of the moths and the gentle tap of ornamental cherry tree branches on the porch screens until Derek collected himself.

He took a deep breath and squeezed her shoulders in a helpless kind of thanks. “You won’t tell anybody, will you?” he asked.

“Absolutely not,” she said firmly.

 

They were friends from then on, although they became a lot closer when Derek came out, and then when Chris and Mariam had started dating. She’s loyal and kind and sticks up for herself as a rule. She’s fine with being one of Derek’s few friends, and she doesn’t judge him for it. She’s also busy as all hell, most of the time, so when Derek desperately texts _where r u?????_ she says _eating_ _lunch in the costume studio shits busy._

He knows that costume studio time is not fuck-around time, especially toward the beginning of the semester when the teachers had just then chosen the fall production and it was up to Ford to count and catalog the costumes that would be appropriate for the time period. So he sighs deeply, walks away from the cafeteria, and resigns himself to eating alone with a notebook.

Not that he minds! Not that he minds.

The library is closed to students during lunch for the first week of school. He’s definitely not depressing enough to eat in a bathroom stall. He doesn’t like smoking enough to join the  _ really _ artsy kids on the grassy back slope of the main school building. And he knows where he should be, really.

He sits down next to Chris on the bleachers without asking. Chris has headphones in, but pulls them out immediately when he sees Derek, blinding smile spreading across his face without hesitation. “Hey, man!” he says. “How are you?”

“I’m cool,” Derek replies, as always. “How are you?”

It’s the pity “how are you,” with the emphasis on  _ are _ instead of  _ you _ . Normally, Chris hates that, but he hardly notices now. “I’m-- I’m not awesome,” he says, crumpling up his headphones in one hand and sticking them into the pocket of his Nike jacket. “I-- have you heard from Mariam?”

“Yeah, she landed fine. Her roommate thinks her accent is hilarious, apparently. You know, Chic _ aw _ go and all that.”

Chris laughs with a little bit more throat than usual. He’s working up something to say, and Derek waits patiently.

“Did you know?” he asks, so quietly it’s almost inaudible.

Derek feels himself crumple completely, the way he does around Chris. “No, man, I really didn’t,” he says. “That’s the way she makes choices, you know.”

Chris sighs with an enormous heave of his shoulders. His eyes are still a little swollen, but really only a little bit; Derek just notices because-- well, because he’s spent a lot of time looking. “Yeah, like how she decided to go to Melbourne in the first place,” Chris says.

He accepts Derek’s offer of some of his salt and vinegar chips with steady hands and continues: “I guess I knew then that we would probably break up eventually.”

They listen to the new Travis Scott album through one headphone each. Derek decides, with a medium-sized feeling of conflict in his chest, that Chris is going to be fine.

 

“It was  _ amazing _ !” Lou says, galloping back and forth next to Derek as if she is far too excited to even consider traveling at his sedate teenager speed. “In middle school, everyone sits in the same room to eat lunch instead of having to split up into all their classrooms! And there’s a turtle that lives in the back of the science classroom and whoever answers the question of the day first gets to feed him. And Kayla and Imani and Georgia are all in my homeroom and we got to pick who we sat at a table with so we all sit in a square together and--”

Derek fishes his car keys out of the side pocket of his backpack and tries to mentally prepare himself for the task of driving home.

It’s not that he can’t drive. He totally learned how sophomore year with everybody else. It’s just that-- along with walking, standing, catching objects, and writing clearly-- this skill is impeded by Derek’s comical lack of spatial awareness. Not that he’s ever really gotten in an accident. Actually, he’s fine most of the time. Mariam had driven them to school every day as soon as she got her license, and then also driven them home. And he’s not a big road tripper or anything; he knows the bus system really well, so getting around town doesn’t matter too much. But he’s fine. He has some trouble with parallel parking, but everyone does. And going backwards would be confusing for anybody. Overall, Derek is probably exactly average at driving a motor vehicle.

“Wait wait wait, don’t shift into drive yet,” Lou says, stuffing a pillow between the seatbelt and her chest.

He might be below average.

Derek eyes the key ring before he turns it and starts the car. Then he looks himself deeply in the eye in the rearview mirror. Are you supposed to be able to see your own eyes in the rearview mirror? Does he need to adjust that?

He closes his eyes and sends up a little prayer to the Dukes of Hazard as he shifts into reverse and prepares to leave the parking lot.

“HEY HEY HEY!” someone yells from behind the car. Apparently the Dukes of Hazard are out of the office today.

Derek hits the brakes and shifts back into Park. His head falls forward onto the steering wheel, which draws out a long protest from the car horn, through which he can just barely hear someone knocking on his car door.

“Hey,” Will Poindexter says through the open driver’s side window.

Derek lifts his head up and squints at him. “Hi,” he says, with a kill-me-now head flourish.

Will puts one toned forearm on the windowsill and leans in slightly. “Does your car jerk when it starts accelerating?” Will asks. “Because it does sound kind of funny.”

“No, this car actually runs great,” Derek replies. “I am genuinely just a guy with all the tools he needs to drive well trying his best, and this is how it’s turning out.”

Lou cackles, and he reaches out without looking to smack her shoulder.

Will nods seriously. “Okay,” he says. “In that case, I just wanted to make sure you knew that you just almost hit me with your car.” A cast iron skillet could not be so deadpan. “I mean, because I generally would like to avoid that happening in the future.”

“Mhm. I did notice that, actually,” Derek replies, giving him his driest face right back. “I promise I won’t try to hit you with my car. But that kind of seems like it might have more to do with you than it does with me.”

Unexpectedly, Will grins at him. “Okay,” he says, tapping his open palm once more on the drivers’-side window ledge and looking past him at Lou. “Uh, just a fun fact that’s unrelated to the situation: if you’re in a car and the driver loses control, you’re supposed to jump, and then drop and roll like during a fire drill.”

“Thanks, Will,” Derek says, rolling the window up to force his elbow out.

“You’re welcome,” Will says before he turns and jogs away, soccer bag bouncing on his hip.

Lou pats down the pillow in her lap. “That’s Will Poindexter?”

“Sure is,” Derek replies tightly, watching his knuckles turn white where he’s gripping the steering wheel.

She makes a considering noise. “He has dimples.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u to john mulaney for the car joke


	6. will poindexter has a car

“ _Oh, my name?_ ” Zack Morris says, slipping into the bathroom as his voice rises into a falsetto. " _Uhh-- my name’s Bambi._ ”

These are Derek’s longstanding Saturday night plans. Ford is out babysitting some stoned theater kids; Chris is-- he doesn’t know, probably doing pull-ups and sweating in a really angsty way. Mom is at the hospital with a patient. “Yikes, Virgo baby,” Derek had said as she kissed both him and Lou on the forehead and swept out the door.

Lou flops over on her part of the sectional. “You think Mariam actually misses us?” she asks.

“What?” Derek reaches over to whack her with a pillow. “Of course she does, dude. Why would you ask that?”

His little sister looks faux-nonchalantly at her fingernails, but Derek taught her that move, so he sees right through it. “I don’t know,” she says. “She just seemed really happy when we FaceTimed earlier.”

Derek softens. “Yeah, she was happy to see us, dum-dum,” he says, reaching over to grab her sock foot. “What, did you want her to cry the whole time?”

The TV’s laugh track crackles as Lou shrugs and plants her face in a couch cushion. Derek feels that something else is forthcoming.

“Yeah, but do you think she misses us as much as we miss her?” she asks, almost too quiet and distorted for Derek to understand.

He feels his heart squeeze a little bit. “Lulu,” he says, and waits for her to turn toward him. “Mariam loves and misses you a lot, even if she doesn’t show it as easily. That’s how she is, habibti. She’s having adventures and stuff, yeah, but that’s what happens when you get older and go to college. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to be here. Can you imagine how boring we’d be if neither of us went to school and Mom didn’t go to work and we just stayed here all the time? What would we even talk about?”

Lou gives him a little half-smile, and Derek breathes a sigh of relief. Successful Biggest Sibling moment completed.

“Some of us are already boring,” she says impishly.

He throws a kernel of popcorn at her. “I have no clue what you mean.”

“I’m just saying,” she starts, and Derek realizes that she’s been planning this for a while. “You’re in high school and you have the car all to yourself now _and_ Mom is gone on a _weekend night_ , and you’re still inside with me watching _Saved by the Bell_.”

“Read me, I guess,” Derek says, pretending to care about fifteen percent less than he does. “But you know I like hanging out with you. And it’s better for all of our health if I drive as little as possible.”

“We-ell,” Lou wheedles, flipping over and examining one of her curls for split ends. “ _Ifyoudatesomeonewithacaryoudon’thavetodrive_.”

Derek pushes at her with his feet. “What was that, demon?”

She sighs and sits up, grabbing a mint Oreo from the package in front of her. One of Lou’s party tricks is being able to extract the cream from the cookie in a perfect patty shape, every time. “Date somebody with a car. _You_ can get a life without having to drive a car, and maybe they can drive us to school so _I_ can survive until seventh grade. And then I can start going to sleepovers on Saturdays instead of doing this.”

“First of all? Harsh. Second of all? I think I have to be able to _get_ a date, first, Lou.” Derek’s eyes sting a little bit, which is deeply embarrassing. “Now watch your garbage TV and eat your junk food. If you’re going to stay home with your lame older brother, you have to commit to it.”

“Will Poindexter has a car,” Lou says.

Derek squints at her, both proud of and horrified by her razor-sharp intuition. “Will Poindexter has a girlfriend.”

Lou throws her hands in the air in defeat and lays back down on the overstuffed gray cushions.

 

A few episodes later, Derek’s far enough down the road to sleep that he’s not going to move, but still conscious enough to notice Lou getting up, pulling a blanket over him, and patting him on the head. It’s cute that she’d pass up plans for him, even if it’s humiliating. He really kind of lucked out on the younger sibling draw.

“Good night, single Derek,” she whispers.

Little shit.

 

He makes it all the way through his Tuesday before the shit hits the fan. “No, no, the viking in this one is named _Der_ rolf, which is totally different,” he says to Ford. “He’s a sensitive soul with brown eyes. The last guy had blue ones.”

Ford, on her bicycle beside him, hums thoughtfully. This is their pattern in the fall. Most of Ford’s free time is immediately after school, when Derek has cross country training, so she just kind of tags along on the trails. This is the kind of thing that Ford can just kind of do without being questioned. It’s a gift of hers.

“Okay, but is the heroine a museum curator again?” she asks.

“No, she’s a history professor,” Derek pants. “Different.”

Ford makes a loud buzzer noise. “Nope! That’s officially the same book as the one you read last weekend.”

They emerge from the woods behind the school onto the open part of the track, which runs between the baseball diamond and the back of the gym. Derek switches sides so that Ford can ride on the sidewalk. “Whatever,” he says. “It’s fine if you can’t appreciate literary nuance.”

Then, for the second time in less than a week, he almost mows down Will Poindexter. Miraculously, neither of them hit the ground, but Derek does feel bad about the velocity with which their shoulders came into contact.

“Sorry, man,” he calls behind himself, not intending to stop.

Then he hears the smack of someone running up behind him. “Wait,” Will says. “Can I talk to you about something?”

Derek stops, hands on his hips and breathing heavily, and Ford skids to a halt on Will’s other side. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, Poindexter,” she says, glowing a tiny bit with exertion. “I know we haven’t historically been friends, but if you want me to take revenge on my cousin for dumping you, I am _always_ looking for a reason to take revenge on her. And I own very sharp scissors.”

“Thank you for the offer?” he says, with an unfortunately charming head tilt. “I actually needed to talk to Derek, though.”

Ford nods seriously.

“Alone,” Will says. “Sorry.”

“Weird, but okay,” she replies sagely, beginning to wheel her bicycle away. “Well, if either of you need me, I’m going to go watch volleyball practice--” she raises up her hands in air quotes-- “ _for_ _research_.”

“That’s gay,” Derek calls after her.

She takes her hands off the handlebars to shrug dramatically.

When he turns his attention back to Will, Derek realizes that he looks genuinely flustered, which is confusing. He just kind of assumed, based on their every interaction over the past several years, that Will was the kind of guy who was always doing exactly what a normal person would be doing, and therefore never felt odd or out-of-place.

A few of Derek’s teammates run past them in matching Hoffeldt High orange shorts.

“What do you need, man?” he asks. “Kind of in the middle of something.”

Will doesn’t so much shrug his shoulders as raise them up slightly and then give up. “This is kind of awkward,” he says apologetically, brown eyes creasing at the outside corners. “Um, it’s really nice of you, but I gotta tell you that it’s not going to happen.”’

Derek cocks his head in confusion. “What do you-”

“Like, between us,” Will stutters. “I know me and March broke up, but like--”

Without permission, Derek’s temperature goes up. “What? Where is this coming from, Poindexter? You think I was trying to flirt with you by hitting you with my car or something?”

“I don’t--” Will starts. “It seemed like--”

“Shocker for ya,” Derek butts in. “Not every interaction you have with a queer dude is him falling in love with you, asshat.”

He doesn’t think he’s ever gotten a rise of of Will Poindexter before. His face is turning kind of red under his orangey hair, and he looks both trapped and angry. He raises his arms to gesticulate as he says, “Well, you were the one who said--”

That’s where Derek loses the thread of the conversation. Because clutched in one of Will Poindexter’s freckled hands is a pink envelope with very familiar handwriting on it. Two stamps, which Derek already knows are limited-release Rudolph ones from Christmas of 2013. It reads, in Derek’s very best eighth-grade cursive: _Will Poindexter_. Derek’s breathing speeds up and goes shallow.

“And I’m sorry I made you cry in middle school or whatever, but--” Derek thinks Will is saying as his vision starts to go dark around the edges.

His knees feel a little shaky, and he can hear his heartbeat in his own ears. Will Poindexter is holding a love letter. Derek is taking in less and less oxygen by the second: a love letter that Derek very much wrote to him and signed at the bottom. A love letter that should by all rights-- he can really only see pinpoints now-- be hidden at the bottom of a beaten-up cigar box at the very top of Derek’s closet shelves.

“Nurse?” he hears, as if from the bottom of a very deep well.

The world goes completely dark.


	7. macking on a mannequin head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow we're back!!!!! i don't have as much free time now as i did over break but i'll try to get 2 chapters up per week? ish? idk we'll figure out a schedule it'll be fine

Spin the bottle. Cheek. Crying. Letter. Box. Shelves. Will Poindexter. Will Poindexter?

Derek suddenly comes to.

“Nurse? Derek! What the fuck? Do I need to get somebody?  _ Derek _ !”

He sits up so fast his head starts to spin again. “Shut up, man,” he says, dull headache making itself apparent. He leans forward, elbows on thighs, and rubs his temples.

“What the hell, are you okay?” Will is asking. Because he is apparently still here. Because this is not a nightmare. Because somehow, for real, in real life, Will Poindexter is holding one of Derek’s deepest secrets in his giant sporty hands. He’s crouched next to him on the path now, the knees of his jeans dirty, and he looks roughly as nauseous as Derek feels.

“What is  _ happening, _ ” Derek mumbles miserably into his hands.

“You fainted,” Will replies. “Please just tell me if you’re okay or not.”

Derek rolls his eyes inside his closed eyelids. “Relax, for real, I am okay, and I did get the whole fainting part, I’m just wondering--”

He opens his eyes to realize a couple of things. One: Will Poindexter is closer to him than he is ready to contend with. Derek can kind of smell him, they’re so close: spice and soap and maybe citrus. When he looks down, he can see the tops of Will’s collarbones through his t-shirt. Two: Christopher Chow is coming down the path from the direction of the school, and he’s holding something distant and light blue that Derek cannot confirm but strongly suspects is an envelope.

As he approaches, he bears a face that has never, ever been aimed at Derek. Derek does not know what the expression is, exactly, but it’s new and not happy and he feels his stomach drop all the way out of his body and travel to the center of the earth. The brutal facts of the situation flood back in: Chris is his very straight best friend from childhood, who has been dating his very beloved sister for the past two years, and who just got his heart broken by that same sister, and Derek once wrote down all of his most secret, most selfish, and least-okay thoughts about the whole affair and sealed them away in a blue envelope. If Chris got his letter-- honestly, it makes the problem with Will seem like very small potatoes.

And he will be here in roughly twenty seconds.

“Poindexter,” he says, grabbing at Will’s arm without looking away from the oncoming storm.

Will stops looking around for someone else to help with the whole situation and focuses back onto Derek. “What, what do you need?”

Derek looks him right in the eye, grip on Will’s wrist approaching permanent damage. “I need you to know in advance that I’m very sorry for what I’m about to do.”

Will blinks widely. “What are you--”

“You will probably be mad at me for this,” Derek says calmly. “But it would be super dope of you to not beat me up afterwards.”

He plants one hand on Will’s square jaw, leans forward, and kisses him soundly.

Well, kind of. Ford taught him how to do a stage kiss like this: thumb over the other person’s lips, so you look convincingly close but you don’t actually meet. It’s kind of a stupid trick, especially considering that your lips can usually still touch around the thumb, but it makes Derek feel like slightly less of an asshole for laying one on Will out of nowhere and without permission.

It’s a horrible kiss, for what it’s worth—not that Derek has a whole lot to compare to. Derek’s still a little lightheaded, so he's even clumsier than usual. Will is still hunched awkwardly in the dirt like a sprinter at the start of a race. And the muscles in his face are completely immobile, so it feels like Derek is macking on a mannequin head. He pulls back.

Will looks glassy as a frozen lake. Motionless, shocked, mouth ever-so-slightly open.

“Um, all right,” Derek says. “Seriously, I’ll give you my life savings if we never talk about this again.”

He glances past Will’s head to see that, indeed, Chris has stopped dead in his path. While he still has the element of surprise, Derek stands up without another word and sprints away.

 

He checks under the stall doors to make sure he’s alone before he locks himself in one.  _ In for three, out for five _ , he thinks, breathing slowly and bracing his arms against the white-painted wooden walls. All he needs is a second or two of peace and he’ll be fine.

Which, of course, is exactly when a small hand slides yet another envelope under the stall door.

This envelope is green. It is addressed, in an understated hand, to one Andrew Duan.

“What the fuck, Nurse,” Larissa Duan says from the other side of the door.

He groans and lets his head thunk into the wall.

 

The girl that he once knew as Andrew Duan wore a very dark green suit to the ninth grade homecoming dance. She knew her color palette well, and her blue-black hair was swooped atop her head with a grace that most people can’t achieve until well past high school.

Derek had made eye contact with her on the way into the school gym and got the ubiquitous butterflies, that single infallible sign that one has a crush in middle or high school. He didn’t say anything to her, of course, because Derek very rarely struck up conversations with people that he really wanted to talk to, but they looked at each other and she smiled with her slightly too-long incisors and a lot of things inside of him lit up.

Much as his wallflower tendencies often meant that Derek missed out on talking to people he liked, in this one particular instance, it meant that Derek was quietly people-watching when a someone in a pine-colored suit disappeared through the back door of the gym. He followed, of course, after a strategically unthreatening ten seconds.

“You okay out here?” he asked as he emerged into the cold, hunching his shoulders and shoving his fists in his pants pockets.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied. This was clearly untrue in some way, as she was sitting, curled nearly into the fetal position, on the curb of the empty parking lot.

Derek sat next to her without thinking and hunted down an appropriate opening line. “I can never decide if I actually have fun at these dances,” he said, and she laughed.

“I can usually figure out right away that I’m  _ not _ having fun,” she’d replied, gripping the toes of her dress shoes with the very tips of her fingers. “It’s like being in a dog show. I know that’s kind of a douchey thing to say.”

Derek waggled his head from side to side, considering. While he didn’t have great instincts for what to say next in most social situations, Derek at least had a knack for knowing when something was important enough to take his time responding to.

While he was warming up, she kept talking. “Like, none of the people in there are actually themselves right now,” she said. “That--” she gestured to Derek’s semiformal get-up-- “Is probably not you, no offense, and the things that popular people are wearing inside right now aren’t them, and this? This is absolutely, one hundred percent, no question, not me.”

“None taken. But I’m sorry, man,” Derek replied. “That sucks.”

She’d just shrugged. Derek snuck glances at her, both of their breath curling out in white spirals in the chilly October air. The parking lot lamps reflected off her hair in that sickly pale orange color that Derek usually hated, but it looked all right on her.

“Plus, the music is horrible,” she’d offered in a transparent bid to lighten the mood.

“Hey, I like Ellie Goulding,” Derek had protested.

She listened to the tinny beat emanating from the walls of the gym for a second, one ear tipped higher into the air. “Sure,” she said. “This one can stay.”

Derek, feeling a temporary boldness in his chest like a faucet turning on, had stood up and held a hand out. “You wanna dance?” he asked.

She’d taken his hand with a grin, eyes and nose crinkling up in a way that sent the butterflies in Derek’s stomach wheeling. And so he had awkwardly held her at arms’ length while they swayed to “Love Me Like You Do,” smelling her coconut-y hair product and feeling like he had entered an alternate dimension.

Then, as he usually did, he went home and wrote a letter.

 

“Gotta be honest, my man, I didn’t expect you of all people to pull something like this,” Larissa says, combat boots shifting on the floor for a beat or two before turning, decisively, to leave. “I don’t love it.”

Derek fumbled with the lock in a panic. “Wait, wait, Ellie,” he says, bursting from his stall door and skidding into the sinks hipbone-first, which is definitely going to bruise. “I’m so sorry, I wrote that letter, like, first semester freshman year when I didn’t know yet. It was like the night of homecoming. I swear. I would never deadname you like that on purpose.”

Ellie, two years after that homecoming dance, is a moderately-goth dreamscape. She has that same glossy hair, shoulder-length now, and silver hoop and stud earrings that proceed almost uninterrupted from the top of her cartilage to her earlobe. There is always paint under her fingernails. She is the inarguable master of the smudged bottom eyeliner. Halfway out the bathroom door, she turns to look at him with equal measures of skepticism and exhaustion on her face. “Then why’d I get it in the mail yesterday, Nurse?”

“I didn’t send it!” he assures her hurriedly. “I actually haven’t even had time to think about how all the letters got out yet. They were just in a box in my closet for like years and then for some reason, today, they’re popping up fucking  _ everywhere _ .”

Ellie looks mollified, and the disappointment on her face is slowly transforming. “Wait,  _ all  _ the letters?” she asks.

Derek winces, every muscle in his arms contracting, and nods. “Yeah, I wrote a bunch of them when I was younger. To all the guys I had crushes on. Or, um, that I thought were guys at the time.”

“Oh, damn,” Ellie says, one fist coming up in front of her mouth, voice jumping in barely-disguised glee. “Okay, I’m listening.”


	8. love (and I mean it That Way)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you ever just project So Hard onto derek nurse?

Derek has never had to fight so hard to stay calm on the drive home from school. His arms are twitching. His phone buzzes with a text, and before he can tell her not to, Lou reads it from his lock screen. “Chris called you,” she says. “And Ford says _why is WP asking me to check if you have a concussion_.”

He swats the phone out of her hand. She’s blessedly silent the rest of the ride.

 

“Hi, babies,” he hears his mom calling from the kitchen as he dashes inside, but he disappears up the stairs instead of responding. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if the box is still there. It might mean that today was a weird fever nightmare and he can still fall asleep and wake up and everything will be normal.

No, he realizes as Chris’s name lights up his phone screen again. No it will not.

Either way, there’s no question: the cigar box isn’t there. Not at the top of the shelf in his closet. Not on his desk, under his bed, under any of the piles of clothes in his room. “Mom!” he yells as he thunders down the stairs once again, Birkenstocks slapping like duck feet. “Mom, have you seen that cigar box Dad gave me?”

“Hello to you too,” she says, setting down a half-peeled carrot. “My day was great, thanks for asking. I even got done early because my patient delivered in four and a half hours, and I was _going_ to tell you that she was the surrogate for that hockey player and his husband you met in my waiting room. No HIPAA, but I was considering telling you the name they chose.”

“I don’t really care about that right now, Mom,” Derek says, tossing his backpack onto the couch and nearly hitting Lou, who doesn’t protest as much as he expects. “It’s really important that I find that box.”

“I think Chris would want to know,” his mom says in a sing-song voice.

Derek huffs. “Well, I’m not really talking to Chris right now. Do you know where it is? Please, Mom.”

Something-- maybe the fact that he’s not talking to Chris, maybe the fact that Derek is a strong breeze away from bursting into tears-- catches her attention. “The little wooden one? I haven’t seen it, hon. Are you sure you didn’t donate it to Goodwill?”

“Oh my god,” Derek says.

He shakes down his long-term memory for any evidence of what he put in those boxes. The last time he knows he saw the letters, he was shoving them under the bed so Mariam didn’t see-- did they get tangled in something? Did he ever put them back in the box or on the shelf? _Shit._ Would Goodwill really just mail a letter that someone donated? “Shit, shit, shitshitshit,” he says under his breath, but apparently not far enough under his breath.

“Language,” his mom says sharply. “And you got something in the mail.”

Derek grabs the envelope she points at off the counter and runs back upstairs to have a breakdown.

“Geneva Roberta Bittle-Zimmermann,” he hears his mom call just before he slams his door.

It’s the yellow one. The first one. He’d doodled little grass and flowers all around the edges, and his ten-year-old handwriting wanders across the front of the envelope. It’s a wonder the post office found any free space for the “Return to Sender” stamp.

It had been addressed to the camp, and there wouldn’t be anyone there in the fall. So at least there’s that small blessing. Who fucking knew what Kent Parson was even up to these days. He made a cute ten-year-old, but plenty could have happened between now and then.

After a quick search that Derek knows he shouldn’t really do, it turns out that What Happened was about a hundred thousand Instagram followers. Well, at least he had an eye for bone structure back in the day.

Every molecule in him wants to go to Mariam for help. Like he always has. She’d know what to do; she would come up with a plan and stop things from feeling so catastrophic. But now, somehow, Derek has fucked up badly enough that he can’t even tell her.

So instead of going for his phone like he’s itching to do, he closes his eyes and breathes deeply. _What would Mariam do?_

Damage control, Derek thinks. There’s no taking this back, so he just has to weather the storm. He definitely doesn’t have to worry about Kent: good. Bradley Knight is almost definitely in college right now, and he for sure won’t remember the chubby kid from his one extracurricular four years ago, so if he gets his letter at all it’ll be more confusing than embarrassing. He already talked to Larissa, which was overall a deeply shitty moment, but both Ellie herself and their relationship seemed to be fine. And Will was actually a pretty good sport about the whole thing, seems like, although that situation will become a crisis eventually. But then there’s Chris.

God help him, Derek can probably still recite that letter from memory, he’s read it so many times.

_You have such a great smile I was actually a little mad when you got braces, because I thought I wouldn’t get to see it as much. When you smile at me, I feel like there’s sunlight seeping into my bones._

Derek wills himself not to think about it. That letter catches him both at his absolute emotional limit and in the phase where he felt like he was a really great writer and adverbs were his friend. This is the worst case scenario in every way possible, except maybe if Chris had gotten the letter when he was still with Mariam. But Derek thinks that if he never, ever makes eye contact with Chris ever again, he’ll be fine.

Who, of course, he catches sight of just that second crossing the side yard.

_Sometimes I picture what it would be like if you chose me instead of Mariam. I’d go to all your games with some dumb poster. You’d have to kiss me first, but I’d tell every single person I met that you were my boyfriend._

“Shut up,” he says aloud to the empty room.

“Who are you talking to?” Lou asks, leaning in his doorway with one purple Chuck Taylor propped on top of the other.

He drags his hands down his face. “Nobody,” he says. “Myself.”

If one more thing happens, Derek thinks, he is going to absolutely lose it.

“Derek, honey, Chris is here for you!” his mom yells from the foyer.

_Love (and I mean it That Way, and I mean it that way every time I say it to you in real life),_

_Derek._

“Mm-mm. Nope,” he says to himself. As he sticks one leg out of his bedroom window, he turns very seriously to Lou. “I’m going to go live with wolves.”

He throws himself to the ground.

 

Weird as it sounds, Derek can finally breathe when he starts running. It’s only about a mile, maybe a little less, to Annie’s: just long enough for his heart rate to even out and the incessant babble of his internal monologue to begin quieting itself down. _You cannot change it,_ he thinks as he runs. _You puked your soul out all over that stupid letter, and now Chris knows everything, but this is just your new reality. Go ahead and live in it._

He makes it in five and a half minutes. He’s wearing the wrong shoes.

Even just the sight of their pink-and-white striped awning makes him feel a little better. Annie’s is the place he and his dad used to go together-- not very often, because Lou was so little, but for special Dad-and-D occasions. When Derek got his shots before preschool, he got a red Spiderman band-aid and an Annie’s sundae.

On the inside, it looks almost more like a bookstore than a café, with booths and counters separated by twenty-odd shelves of used copies of _To Kill a Mockingbird_ and _The Hobbit_ and lots and lots of Harlequin romance novels that he was once told he was too little to pick up. He learned to read here, first sitting on Dad’s lap and hearing the reassuring rumble of his voice describe Matilda’s horrible parents, then reading aloud to Dad himself. Now, it’s the place Derek goes for a little solitude and a lot of coffee and a book recommendation.

“Can I have a cappuccino and whatever you have that’s not about Vikings?” Derek asks the dark-haired woman behind the counter.

Mandy looks thoughtful as she wipes her hands on her black apron. A co-owner of the café with her wife, Jenny (there are no actual Annies involved), she knows both their coffee options and their romance novel collection like the back of her own hand. “Mmm. Would, like, a knight be okay, do you think?”

“Cool,” Derek says, slumping onto the nearest barstool with a sigh. “Thank you.”

Mandy disappears around the corner, and Derek takes a deep inhale of the coffee-and-chocolate-scented air. He entertains the idea of staying right here on this barstool forever. This place makes him feel like himself: relaxed, warm, miles away from the attention-sucking drama queen that the universe has decided, without Derek’s involvement, he is meant to be. Coffee in one hand, _Dark and Stormy Knight_ by Andrea Charlevoix in the other, Derek can reasonably pretend that his problems are normal and manageable. The drink and the book are as excellent as they have always been.

Will Poindexter drops into the stool next to him.

The solitude might be unavailable today.


	9. a filthy filthy romance novel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for your lovely comments on the last chapter (and the preceding ones)-- you fill my heart with love and joy. school just started, which is :/, but i'm a little ahead in writing this so i think i'll be able to post three chapters per week. for now, look out for updates every monday, wednesday, and friday!

If he had the home address of the universe, Derek thinks, he would march his ass over there right now, T.P. her house, stick plastic forks tines-up in her yard, and then Saran-wrap her car. He would feel totally justified in doing this, but he would also run away before she realized anything was happening, because as unfairly as he feels he is being punished by the universe, he really, really does not want to attract any more bad vibes from her. He has suffered enough.

Will grabs one of the pink sugar packets from the little caddy in front of him and fidgets with it, apparently unsure what to say.

Derek sighs deeply. “Why are you here, Poindexter?”

Will shrugs and opens his mouth, but is interrupted by the return of Mandy. “Anything for your friend?” she asks, smiling at them both. Possibly giving Derek a little wink.

“We’re not here together,” Derek blurts at the same time that Will says “Can I have a green tea, please?” So he’s staying.

Derek turns his shoulders toward Will and gestures with his novel, as if to say _go on_. Will clears his throat. “I really wanted to talk to you about-- today, and you weren’t at your house, but Mini Derek said you’d be here.”

“Lou?” Derek asks. “We’re not really _that_ much alike.”

Will waggles his head back and forth in mild disagreement. “She looks exactly like a scale model of you but with pigtails.”

“That’s weird,” Derek says. “Seeing as how she’s adopted.”

“Wait, really?” Will asks.

“No, but that’s what I’m gonna tell her when I go home.” Derek takes a sip of his drink, and Will snorts, which Derek finds himself pleased by. Lou told Will where Derek was, but she obviously didn’t tell Chris, and he knows that she’s trying to ruin his life but her gameplan is a total mystery. That girl needs a hobby, Derek thinks. Chess or something.

“Thank you so much, um, Jenny,” Will says, carefully checking the nametag of the woman setting down his drink.

He has fantastic manners. Derek has to give Mrs. Poindexter props for that.

“So what are you reading?” Will asks.

Too much has already happened today for Derek to have any particular level of pride. “A filthy, filthy romance novel,” he says lazily, slumping forward onto his elbows and looking at Will sideways. “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?”

Will’s eyebrows tick up, then back down into that furrow. “No, I mean, I did want to talk about what happened. At the track. I mean, it was a really nice letter. You’re a good writer. I just-- March _just_ broke up with me, and I don’t think we really know each other--”

“ _Dude_ ,” Derek says, cutting through the air in front of Will’s face with a hand as if to slam a gate down on the babbling. “Chill. I get that you’re trying to let me down easy, but you really don’t have to.”

One of Will’s eyebrows screws up way farther than the other, and his nose wrinkles on the opposite side. “Don’t I? I mean, I wasn’t sure you really heard me the first time. Especially with the-- you know.” He awkwardly flourishes with his right hand in the air between Derek and himself.

Derek cringes. “Yeah, I’m super sorry about that one,” he said. “If it helps, I can guarantee you that it was one _hundred_ percent not because I like you. Like, I really do not. I mean, not like that, ‘cause you seem like an okay dude in general, but, uh, it was to make somebody else think I didn’t like them.”

There’s a beat. Will’s eyes roll up to the ceiling in consternation. “So you kissed me--” he punctuates by pointing at the parties involved-- “but not because you like me, but because you want a different person to _think_ you like me.” He looks at Derek flatly. “Did I get that about right?”

“It’s complicated, my man,” Derek says.

“That’s pretty apparent,” Will snipes back. “Well, if you don’t actually like me, why’d you write me a love letter?”

Derek exhales, heavily, through his nose, and he finally puts the book all the way down on the counter. “Because I did like you. In like eighth grade. And that’s how I used to cope with having crushes on boys.”

It’s kind of terrifying to say, just like that. He’s basically out at school, and definitely with his family, but he doesn’t talk about it a lot. Especially with straight guys he’s not really friends with-- it just doesn’t seem terribly wise. He takes another yoga breath and rests his cheek in his right hand, propped up on the bar.

“I have some questions,” Will says.

“Thought you might.”

He holds up one finger. “Why’d you mail the letter, like, three years later?”

“Accident,” Derek says.

Second finger. Backlit by the café’s windows, Will’s eyelashes are a pale gold. “Two, why does this mystery person need to think that you like me?”

Derek smiles sarcastically with closed lips. “Because he got a letter too.”

“ _What_ ?” Will says, eyebrows halfway to his hairline. He extends a third finger. “Um, how many _other_ men am I competing with?”

In for a penny, in for a pound, Derek thinks. “Three guys and a girl,” he says, looking determinedly at the scratched laminate of the counter.

“You have to tell me who,” Will says with equal parts concern and fascination.

Derek sighs and sits up. “This kid from my summer camp when I was ten,” he starts, ticking them off on his fingers. “This high schooler who used to help out with junior debate club. Then you, which. You already know. And then Larissa Duan freshman year.”

“Oh, Lardo?” Will asks, and then seeing Derek look at him with distaste, he says: “Weird nickname. Never mind. Okay, so who was the fifth one?”

“You know,” Derek says, looking at his fingernails. “The guy from today.”

“Who is…?” Will wheedles.

Derek shakes his head firmly. “I’m not telling you that.”

“Yes you are,” Will says. “Although I guess I could start asking around about who _else_ got a long, passionate love letter from Derek Nurse?”

Derek drops his head into his hands and exhales, hard. “Chris Chow,” he says miserably.

There is a moment of silence.

“Your sister’s boyfriend?” Will asks.

Not in a judgmental way. Just curious and a little sympathetic. Derek nods silently.

“Yeah, okay,” Will says. “I think I can see why you’d be making bad decisions.”

 

Will had insisted on driving him home: “I mean, what if you collapse again, but this time in the road, and then it’s my fault?”

He has a big blue-and-white pickup from what looks like the 80s. The truck bed is a little dinged up from carrying whatever it is that left oil stains in a handful of places, but the interior is pristine, and it runs like a dream. Derek says as much.

“Yeah, she was the first car I ever helped fix up, so I try to keep her in good shape,” Will says, patting the steering wheel the same way one would rub a dog’s belly or mess up a kid’s hair. Derek nods and catalogs this piece of information away somewhere.

“Well, uh, thanks for the ride,” he says as they pull up in front of his house.

“No problem,” Will replies. Leave it to the humiliating reveal of all your deepest secrets to prove that a local jock was actually a pretty decent guy.

Derek goes to open the passenger door and get out, but pauses. “And I’m really sorry about the whole-- thing, today. My parents raised me better than that, I swear. Just-- desperate times.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Will says evenly.

“I think Chris was the only person who was really around to see it, and he wouldn’t say anything,” Derek continues, feeling his face start to burn. “But if anybody asks you about it, you can just say I’m some weird thirsty gay dude who’s obsessed with you and it came out of nowhere. Which it did, so. And I’ll make sure to explain the whole thing to Chris, the true version, cause I kind of have to.”

He practically falls out of the car, suddenly desperate to escape the situation. “Wait, Nurse,” Will says from inside the cab of the truck, but Derek just gives him a backwards wave.

The drivers’ side door opens and slams shut. _Fuck_. “Wait wait wait,” he hears Will say again, and Derek turns as he jogs up behind him. “You could just. Not tell him,” Will says.

The wind chimes on the porch are still jingling pleasantly. The air around them is still in about the high 60s, and Derek is pretty sure he has all ten fingers and toes. Despite the stress and chaos of today’s events, everything else seems to be comprehensible and in order except for the thing that Will Poindexter, standing on his front path, is saying to him. In the most literal sense, it does not compute. Derek cannot figure out what he’s trying to insinuate. “Why-- what do you mean?”

Will looks past Derek for a second, then back to his eyes. “We could, um, let him think we’re dating. I mean, and let-- everyone think we’re dating. In general. Just temporarily.”

“What, everyone at school?” Derek asks. Will’s cheeks are starting to turn a brilliant red, but he nods assertively. “Why would you want to do that?”

Will scrubs at his eyes for a second, then puts his hands in his pockets and hunches in toward himself. He is, at this point, completely scarlet, but he looks at Derek with steady eyes the color of glazed cherrywood. His voice does not tremble or go quiet when he says: “Because I want to come out.”


	10. i hope so

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god you guys are actually too nice???? thank you so much again for the lovely comments <3 anyway i've been RARING to post this chapter since the second i published the last one pls enjoy see you monday

Derek wonders vaguely why he isn’t the kind of teenager who puts posters on his bedroom ceiling. He should really start. Despite the general chaos and overdecoration of the rest of the room, the ceiling is still a blank white nothing, interrupted only by barely-visible brushstrokes in the paint. Nonetheless, he has been lying on the floor of his room staring at it, legs propped up on the bed, for about an hour now. He turns his phone over and over on his stomach-- not that he’s checking his notifications, but his hands need something to do. His brain might have melted and dribbled out of his ears at some point; he wouldn’t know. The weirdest conversation of his life plays like a movie on the back of his eyelids.

 

“You’re gay?” he’d said to Will. He can see now that this wasn’t the best possible response, but at least four absolutely batshit things had happened to him already that day, and a body can only take so much.

Will did a little shrug-nod that mostly made his head go in a circle. It reminded him vaguely of Mariam.

“That’s chill,” Derek said. Nobody had ever come out to him before, not really. To begin with, he knew like like five not-straight people tops, and he had just sort of slowly known Ford was a lesbian since the beginning of their friendship; it was part of why they gravitated toward each other.

There was probably a right thing to say. Derek didn’t know it.

Will laughed, so quietly that the only evidence of it was his shoulders rising and falling, and said, “I hope so.”

 

Derek tries to write about it. Curls onto his side and pulls the little notebook out of his back pocket. But he can’t even pick an angle to approach this from. Will Poindexter, homecoming court staple, consummate Cishet White Dude, two-year-boyfriend of one of the hottest teenage girls ever invented, is gay. The possibility had never once crossed Derek’s mind. Will is gay and Chris knows Derek loves him and Mariam will kill him and not even scatter his ashes anywhere cool, like she’ll drive around a parking garage and dump them out of the window into one of those mysterious puddles that parking garages always have for some reason.

 

“Why can’t you just come out, then?” Derek had asked, and he knew it was stupid but. “I know it’s not really like that, but if you’re ready to, I mean.”

The wind chimes tilted together gently, making Derek feel even more separated from reality. “Because, I don’t know,” Will started, looking more than a little constipated. “Because that’s, like, a billion conversations I don’t want to have? Because March is going to make this about her, and it’ll be like this big stupid spotlight on me all the time, and I want to do it but I don’t want to be--” he faltered. “By myself.”

Derek found himself, once again, at a total loss for something appropriate to say. In the silence, he could almost see Will look around for the pieces of his shell that had broken off on Derek’s lawn and stick them back in all the vulnerable places. “And besides,” he continued, sounding more like himself. “That way, Chow wouldn’t think you like him anymore. And you seem pretty cool about that whole situation, so I figured you would maybe know how to handle-- um, this.” He raised his hands like he was about to make a clarifying gesture, but then simply balled them into fists and dropped them back to his sides.

“First of all,” Derek replied. “I’m cool about everything. But I need to know that you know that this is a plan a crazy person would suggest, right? No offense.”

Will pulled his truck keys out of his pocket and tossed them from hand to hand. “You’re right,” he said suddenly, taking a step backwards, still facing Derek. “You’re right, sorry. This was stupid. I shouldn’t have asked.”

He turned, finally, with a little final nod to Derek, and Derek didn’t stop him from going.

 

If Mariam, by some miracle, did not kill him, she’d ask: what are your goals here?

To make sure Chris thinks his crush was over.

Thereby: packing all his feelings back into the box where they belong.

To actually get over Chris.

Thereby: putting the whole thing behind him. Hopefully never telling Mariam this happened.

If he  _ does _ talk to Chris, work things out, explain why and how and when-- well, Derek just can’t. He cannot possibly face that. It will destroy him and whatever’s left of his friendship with Chris. Derek will be exactly where he started, but with the additional agony of Chris knowing that he’s pining and trying to be nice about it. But if Derek  _ doesn’t _ talk to him, that letter is the final word on his feelings. And Chris knows, better than anyone, that the person to talk to in case of a Derek emergency is Mariam. So, square one.

He flops onto his back again, tossing the notebook and his stick pen aside. Needed: something to focus on besides Chris, a way to make Chris believe he’s not in love with him anymore. Both of his sisters are so strongly convinced he needs to have something else going on, and Lou probably isn’t right, but Mariam might be. The ceiling is still blank, but now Derek can’t stop seeing Will’s squinched-up face as he says  _ I hope so _ . 

It feels weird to know how much acting the King of the Cafeteria does on a daily basis. The bland bravado always looks so natural on him.

_ Your freckles are really cute,  _ that letter had said.  _ They make you look like a painting. I feel bad that your friends were being dumb. I was embarrassed, and you took a little chunk of embarrassment for yourself so I didn’t have to be the only one, and that was really nice of you. _

Derek can’t possibly actually do this. It’s insane. 

_ Plus your eyes look like candles up close. _

 

The soccer team practices from six-thirty to seven-thirty AM every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Derek knows this from every time he has rolled up to school forty-five minutes early to make sure nobody else is on the road. The windshield is frosty when he leaves the house, and Lou complains bitterly, but he has business to take care of.

 

Derek doesn’t say a lot when he gets to the field. He doesn’t really have to; he’s a reasonably big guy himself and kind of walking like the Winter Soldier. The rest of the soccer team, running whatever meathead drills they’re running, parts before him like the Red Sea. Leaving one person, the goalie, exposed, which Derek thinks absently is a terrible way to play a sport.

The sun is low and bright, making it difficult to see said goalie. Derek’s floral-print Doc Martens pick up dew as he strides across the turf, then stops.

“Yo, Poindexter,” he calls.

Will looks up from whatever he’s picking at on his gloves. When he clocks Derek, he does that  _ thing _ jocks can do, picking up the edge of his shirt to wipe his face. His abs are not at all shabby. Derek doesn’t notice this for any particular reason.

“Yeah, hi,” Will says. Derek had come to a halt about fifteen feet away, but Will lopes closer with the grace of a guy who could reliably sink paper wads in the trashcan in third grade.

“We should do it,” Derek says.

Will’s eyebrows pop up, and one of his dimples appears. The left one. “The-- the couple thing?” he says, slowing to a walk.

Derek shrugs. “Yeah, sure, that.”

If he’d expected any kind of verbal response, any negotiation or time to back out, Derek is sorely mistaken. Instead, Will breaks into a broad smile mid-stride, reaches casually for Derek’s waist, and pulls him smoothly into a kiss.

And fuck, but Will is great at that.

Derek feels like he’s being swooned. His back arches slightly where Will’s arm lays across it, and he grabs the collar of Will’s jersey with both hands just to have something to hold onto. He is highly aware of the way his arms are pressed wrist-to-elbow against a literal heaving chest. Will’s lips are warm and firm, now that he has time to notice them, and they make a pleasant noise as Will lets him go and Derek stumbles backward-- just a half-step, not noticeable to anyone but Will.

Will’s eyes dart around, but his body language stays relaxed, and Derek registers over the buzzing in his ears that drills appear to have stopped dead. For his part, Derek’s brain is shrieking louder than he’s ever heard it. So he grins, big and easy, and pats Will on the cheek. “Good form, Poindexter,” he says.

Will rolls his eyes a little and starts to jog backwards. “Back to it, you guys,” he calls authoritatively, and Derek manages to keep his face neutral as he says “See you in APUSH,” before he turns, books it off the field, and promptly loses his shit.


	11. i need details

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy monday! thank u all for being so lovely and encouraging and invested in my two oblivious dorks :)

“Okay, I need details,” Ford says as she careens into the desk in front of him at a high enough speed to send it skidding six inches to the right. Derek’s shoulders tense up. “Why did Poindexter just ask me for your phone number?”

He relaxes slightly. Could be worse.

She’s not even in his homeroom. Ford can just do things like that. When Connor, a quiet athlete whose desk she is currently occupying, hovers meaningfully next to her, she doesn’t even look over.

“I don’t know,” he says with a casual tone that would be convincing to almost anyone, possibly including Ford. “I assume he’ll text me to say.”

Tucking her apple-patterned circle skirt daintily under her, Ford turns fully to prop her elbows on Derek’s desk. That transition from human hurricane to suddenly acting like she has all the time in the world is how he always knows he’s in trouble.

“Then  _ why _ , pray tell,” she says quietly but emphatically. “Have I heard rumors of you and the very same William Poindexter making out on the soccer field this morning!” Her eyes gleam like Elle Woods explaining how perms work.

“Why wouldn’t you start with that piece of information?” Derek complains. He slumps over his desk and buries his head in his arms.

“Because I wanted you to incriminate yourself,” she says matter-of-factly.

That’s the thing about drama kids. They hear everything, and they feel no qualms passing it on with perfect enunciation. If they’re not the ones causing the gossip, they definitely know who is, because they can smell interpersonal tension from a mile away. Plus, there’s enough of them that at least one has a sibling in each social circle and on each sports team at Hoffeldt. And as the stage-manager-slash-costume-manager-slash-ego-manager for the whole gang, Ford knows everything that happens before it’s finished happening. She probably knew Will kissed Derek before Derek did.

She digs her pointer finger into the top of his head, and he swats at it. “You truly are the little sister I already have,” he grumbles. “And we didn’t make out.”

From this position, he can look at his buzzing phone without Ford spying.

 

_ +1 (312) 555 8045 _

_ Can we meet for lunch to talk details _

_? _

_ This is Will Poindexter. Not a serial killer _

 

He adds the new contact to his phone as simply “Will,” tapping out his reply as quickly as possible, irrationally anxious that someone will see.

“Well if you don’t want me to say you made out, you gotta give me the real details!” Ford cries. “The school is quaking, and I swear I won’t tell them anything, but I do want to feel better than everyone else! How? How long? Since when does Poindexter like dudes? Since when do  _ you _ like  _ Poindexter _ ?”

 

_ +1 (312) 555-2929 _

_ as opposed to all th other wills im juggling _

_ ye _

 

Ms. Atley sweeps in to begin homeroom proceedings, so he tucks the phone back into his jacket pocket and rests his chin on his forearms to look up at Ford. She looks delighted by the gossip, but he can see that soft edge that means she wants to ask about his feelings but knows he’ll brush her off. He really, really hates to lean into that, but he doesn’t see any other choice. “I don’t know,” he says, not quite lying but still feeling guilt about the size of a Magic 8 Ball resting in his stomach. “I’m still figuring out the details.”

 

They sit down to talk terms under the ornamental cherries outside the back door of the gym. It’s late September; the silk-gray branches hold leaves but no flowers. Will is there first, hunched over on one side of the picnic table, and Derek slides casually onto the other bench. His baby carrots crunch loudly in the silence, but it’s not his job to start this conversation.

“I think we need rules,” Will says.

“Rules,” Derek echoes.

Will rubs the back of his neck above his hoodie. The gears turning in his head are basically audible. “Yeah, like, guidelines. Boundaries. I don’t wanna-- I don’t know, it’s a complicated--” he tilts his head back and forth. “Arrangement.”

“Jesus, dude, make it sound more like prostitution, why don’t you,” Derek says mildly. He pulls out his Moleskine and lays it flat to the first clean page. He hasn’t taken up much of it at all, so far, a handful of pages of doodles and scribbles illegible to anyone but him. He hadn’t had as much wallflower time as he usually does this semester. “Well, what kind of rules, then?”

Will crosses over to Derek’s side of the table and leans in to read over his shoulder. His arm is tucked right up against Derek’s left side, hand planted on the bench just beside his ass, and Derek finds himself excruciatingly aware of it. Will is warm. “Wow, can’t believe I finally get to see inside Derek Nurse’s mysterious notebook,” he says. “How can you read something that small without going blind?”

Dork. Derek rolls his eyes and writes RULES at the top of the page, then underlines it twice. “I’m, like, mad nearsighted is how.”

“Never seen you wear glasses,” Will says, and Derek doesn’t know why he’s surprised that Will would notice.

“Yeah, I got contacts like right away,” Derek replies. Will is still  _ right _ there, and when Derek moves his arm slightly he feels the inexact bumps of Will’s ribcage. “I don’t really ever wear my glasses around school. Um, I have a rule.”

“Shoot,” Will says, fiddling with the worn patches on his left sweatshirt sleeve.

“I don’t want you to kiss me again,” Derek says. He doesn’t sound as calm as he would have liked; the words tumble over each other like kids leaving a school bus. Still, he keeps his shoulders straight.

Will nods, then does a double-take. “Dude,  _ you _ kissed  _ me _ the first time,” he says.

“Yes, I know, and I really shouldn’t have, and I’m sorry,” Derek replies.

A light breeze blows Will’s hair across his forehead. It glows like copper wire in the scattered sunlight coming through the leaves, and he shakes his head again to get it out of his eyes. “No, I mean, that didn’t really bother me. But how are people supposed to believe we’re dating if I can’t kiss you?”

“I don’t know,” Derek says, waspishly. “Get creative.”

Will huffs, swings a leg over the picnic bench so he’s facing Derek directly. “Why not?” he presses.

Derek thinks about blowing the question off, he really does. But he finally sets the pen down and puffs out a breath. “I’m already gonna be the guy who turned Will Poindexter gay,” he says. “I don’t think PDA is really going to smooth all of that over. And as much as I believe in being loud and proud, I don’t exactly want to, like, tempt your teammates into beating me up.”

“Hey, they’re not like that,” Will says reflexively.

Derek tilts his head, looks at him skeptically from the corner of his eye.

“Okay, almost all of them aren’t like that,” Will concedes.

It’s quiet for a moment, just the distant chattering of kids eating lunch on the tennis courts, and Derek feels the hair on his arms start to rise. Will’s going to back off, he thinks. He’s going to take this stupid contract and show it to everyone in the world, tell them that Derek Nurse is so weird and pathetic that he would rather have a fake boyfriend than just be single. Oh my  _ god _ .  _ Oh my  _ god.

“Well, who says I wasn’t the one who turned you?” Will finally asks.

He has this pout on his face, and it lends an unexpected softness to all the angles of his chin and cheekbones. Derek remembers how much he used to like the Will Poindexter freckles; he bursts into laughter.

“That can be one of our things,” he blurts. “Constantly arguing over who turned who.”

Will smiles, a real one. Derek doesn’t know how he can tell, but he can: it’s not the effortless-jock-leaning-against-a-locker smile Will usually has on. It’s just different.

“I mean, it’s not that I think all your friends suck, man,” Derek says, softening. “But, like, I’m aware that this is gonna be a lot of attention, and I’m not actively looking for more. You know?”

“Fair,” Will says, taking the pen from Derek’s hand and writing down another rule. “But you have to come to soccer games and parties with me. People will get used to you. They’ll like you.”

“They’ll put up with me because I’m with you,” Derek corrects, feeling strangely naked.

Will scoffs and shakes his shoulders back. “They’ll like you. And I literally promise to beat anybody up if they try anything.”

“Don’t beat anybody up,” Derek says.

He kind of wants to see Will beat somebody up.

“Uh, you have to drive me and my sister to school every day,” he offers.

“Done,” Will says. “You have to come on the ski trip.”

“Ew, why?” Derek wrinkles his nose, turning to Will. The ski trip, sometimes called the Slutty Slopes, is for people who like cold weather, people who can stay upright on two feet most of the time, and straight people trying to lose their virginities. Derek is none of those things.

Will looks back at him like his head is missing. “You think people are gonna buy this relationship if you just let me go on the ski trip by myself? No supervision? The horniest weekend of the year?”

“Okay, so I never want to hear you say the word horny ever again,” Derek says. “But fine. If we’re even still doing this in, like, December.” He catches Will’s eye and points at him with his pen. “And when we do fake-break-up, by the way, this goes with both of us to our graves.”

“Obviously,” Will says. 

The bell rings. Derek rips the rules page out of his notebook. “Anything else?”

“Um,” Will says, and Derek pauses in packing his backpack back up. The emotional-vulnerability part of the interaction is over, but Will is chewing on the inside of his lip and fidgeting with his sleeves again, and Derek finds it hard to believe there was a time he didn’t know Will Poindexter got nervous.

“March,” he says finally. “She’s going to be the hardest one to convince. And she’s already telling people I’m just doing this to get back at her, Justin told me.”

“That’s fine,” Derek says, standing and swinging his backpack over one shoulder. “She already hated my ass. Pissing her off is actually, like, a fun bonus feature.”

“No, I mean--” Will pauses. “I’m not really good at, you know, talking. She was always getting on me to, like, tell her how I felt about her or whatever, which-- I don’t know. I was always better at the, um, physical stuff.”

That’s an understatement. Derek remembers this morning, can feel the ghost of Will’s hand on the small of his back, and his cheeks heat up.

“So, I figure, if she sees that we talk about that stuff, she’ll maybe buy it. A little more. You know, get why it’s different. And, I mean, writing stuff down works for you, right? So maybe I can give you notes every day.” He shrugs. “That’s what she was always on me to do.”

Derek just looks at him for a second. Like, really looks. There’s a part of Will that’s kind of hidden under the man’s-man confident jock exterior, but there’s also a part of him that actually is that guy, and that’s what Will looks like now. It’s clearly not easy for him to talk about serious things, but he doesn’t back down from them at all either. He’s frank, but considerate, and he looks right up at Derek while he waits for a response.

“You’re gonna make some guy a great real boyfriend someday, Will Poindexter,” Derek says.

The resulting smile is small, but blinding.


	12. small neat heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> peep the steadily increasing chapter count. help >.< anyway see u all friday for more lou shenanigans

Being Will Poindexter’s boyfriend, real or fake, is like being the protagonist in a Disney Channel original movie about himself. Everything is shiny and snappy and feels like it should come with a laugh track. Derek wakes up the morning that the plan begins to sunlight streaming in through his blinds and Lou banging on his door.

“It’s already seven!” she yells. “I don’t wanna die in a fiery car crash because you have to go faster than ten miles an hour!”

“Chill, Lulu,” Derek says, swinging his bedroom door open just as she raises her fist to knock again. “I’m not driving us to school.”

“Well, the bus already left,” Lou says. “Not that I’d be against skipping.”

Derek pokes his head around the bathroom door to stick his tongue out at her. “No skipping, gremlin. I’ve got a ride.”

 

“Okay, _yes_ ,” Lou says, digging her fingernails into Derek’s bare arm.

Will swings himself up to look over the roof of his absolutely _sparkling_ truck, which rumbles impressively, and gives a broad wave. “You guys ready?”

“You wash your car for me, Poindexter?” Derek calls.

“Gotta make a good first impression,” Will says with a wink as they approach. “C’mon, we’re gonna be late.”

Lou oohs and aahs happily over the leather interior as Derek clambers into the shotgun seat. “Hi, Power Puff Derek,” Will says, craning to look into the backseat. “What smells really good?”

“My name is Aisha Louise McEnroe Nurse, thank you very much,” Lou replies prissily. “And it’s a lentil sambusa.”

“They’re not even a breakfast food. She’s just weird,” Derek says, smacking her knee gently in a way that hopefully says _Manners!_

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Aisha Louise,” Will says, shifting into gear.

He can see Lou Snapchatting gleefully in the rearview mirror. “You know, Derek,” she says, not looking up from her phone. “If I knew your friend was picking us up I could’ve slept in an extra half-hour.”

Will is one of those people who drives stick shift like it’s the third thing they learned after using a fork and tying their shoes. One elbow resting on the window, the other hand tapping out the beat of some dad rock song on the gear shift, he looks kind of like the love interest in a western movie. Derek respects the consistency of that aesthetic. “Well, you can sleep in tomorrow,” Will says, glancing in the rearview mirror.

“You’re driving us tomorrow, too?” Lou squeaks.

Will, barely giving her time to react to that, looks over at Derek for a half-second. “Yeah,” he says. “What kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn’t?”

Derek covers his mouth with one hand as if to smother the uncontrollable giggle that escapes him. Lou reaches forward-- around the door side of Derek’s seat, so Will doesn’t see-- and punches Derek in the back. “Well, I’ll bring an extra breakfast sambusa for you tomorrow,” she says to Will in her sweet-baby-sister voice.

Derek simultaneously pinches her hand and looks over at Will. Both dimples are out.

 

Ford texts him no less than thirteen times during first period. _i know i know,_ he taps out under his desk. _i barely know whats happening either!!_

Which isn’t a lie, strictly speaking.

Even unofficial seating charts are practically law at Hoffeldt. Switching desks more than three days into the semester requires bribes for your classmates, permission from the United Nations and a blood sacrifice. But when Derek walks into second period APUSH, the seat next to Will is just-- open. Like they’d all agreed by telepathy to account for the king’s consort, or something. It’s surreal.

The cafeteria, though, is by far the weirdest part.

It’s like this: Derek has made a science of being background noise at this school. He gets good grades, always, but he isn’t going to be valedictorian. He is a contributing member of a reasonable number of extracurriculars. He responds to everything with relaxed acceptance. He is a liquid that adopts the shape of its container. This lifestyle results in taking up minimal space and attention, and Derek likes it that way. No opinions, no embarrassment, no expectations to live up to or disappoint. No getting involved. It’s _safe_.

This, where everyone is packed into one place so you can see the millions of relationships between every student and every other student, where the seat you take is now a seat that cannot belong to another person, is the most obvious version of the hierarchy. So Derek simply doesn’t take a position in it. He’s always eaten on the bleachers with Chris and Mariam or in the auditorium with Ford and her drama ducklings. He literally cannot remember the last time he ate inside the cafeteria. When he has to go in to buy something or find somebody, he practices the subtle art of not making any impression on anyone.

That seems to be over. Permanently. He has never been noticed as ardently, as thoroughly, as he is when he enters the cafeteria with Will Poindexter.

 _Don’t be so melodramatic,_ he can hear Mariam say.

But it really feels like everyone they pass is doing a slow-motion double-take at the both of them, processing the rumors they heard yesterday with the real-life visual of Will Poindexter and Derek Nurse pressed together as the crowd parts for them through the main aisle of the cafeteria. A handful of Will’s teammates reach out for some kind of dudebro handshake, which makes the tension in Will’s arm relax. A group of freshmen toting woodwind instrument cases gawp openly at Derek, who gives them the least-casual casual smile of his life. They’re not the first gay couple in the history of the school, not by a long shot, but they’re the first gay couple that includes a Will. Which makes a difference.

But Will, for his part, is shockingly good at having a boyfriend. It seems easy and natural for him to put an arm around Derek’s waist as they sweep through the crowd, gently guiding him past an overturned lunch tray. It doesn’t feel like a performance. It just feels like Will knows the right thing to do. The table full of Will’s teammates opens up as they approach like a ship preparing to dock, and this part? The feeling of assumed belonging? That’s not so bad.

Of course, Derek being Derek, he manages to trip over a completely bare patch of floor about fifteen feet away from safety.

He’s intimately familiar with the process of falling at this point, so it feels like it takes forever-- the initial misstep, the overbalancing, the arms flailing. He moves through four of the five stages of grief before he even hits the linoleum. And then he hears Will start to say “hey, hey, hold on,” and he is— not falling.

By the grace of God and Will’s magical jock reflexes, Derek is pulled back up by his right hand and set firmly on his feet. Will spins him into something like a ballroom frame: Will’s hands on Derek’s waist, and Derek bracing himself on Will’s shoulder and elbow.

“Disaster,” Will teases.

The Disney Channel feeling is back. Derek feels like he should say something pithy and PG, but he’s at a loss. Instead, he half-laughs and breaks eye contact, looking over Will’s shoulder.

Where he can see March’s pretty, pretty face screwed up like she’s trying to pretend a broken leg doesn’t hurt.

He is already dangerously close to Will, PDA-close, and they’re within spitting distance of all his friends, but they’d agreed that cheeks were okay. Forehead. That kind of stuff. So he ducks into the precarious, lemongrass-scented air around Will, four years late, to return the peck on Will’s cheek and whisper, “She’s looking.”

As he pulls back, Will takes one hand off Derek’s waist to retrieve a note from his pocket and press it into Derek’s hand. It’s a piece of notebook paper folded in sixths, with the little scraps from under the spiral binding carefully removed, and when he looks down at his hand there’s a small, neat heart written on the note’s outside flap. Derek feels very tenderly toward that little ballpoint heart.

“Did she notice?” Will whispers. Derek’s gaze flicks first to Will and then to the murderous volleyball player behind him. She still looks absolutely pristine, platinum hair straightened and tossed casually over one shoulder, but she is so mad she’s shaking. Derek is surprised he doesn’t immediately turn into stone upon eye contact.

“Yep,” Derek says with a smug grin, holding the note tightly. “She one hundred percent did.”

 

So it feels great to lie to some people. It feels awful to lie to everybody else.

“Oh my _god,_ ” Ford says, and Derek winces as she tugs him forcefully into the costume studio. “Oh my god!”

Derek rubs his temple with the heel of his hand. “Don’t freak out, all right?” he pleads.

The costume studio is lit by three incandescent lightbulbs, each with a pull-chain attached to it, and Ford reaches up to turn the first one on. This place is about as roomy as a coffin, with all the costumes bunched together on racks, stacked two high like in an Old Navy, puffing out toward the middle where Ford and Derek stand. She sits down heavily on the chair at her sewing machine, and she pats the desk in front of her to encourage him to sit.

He sits.

“Don’t _freak out_!” Ford says. “Don’t freak out?! You just fully became the gay Cady Heron of this high school. March is so pissed, if you dropped water on her, it would sizzle. This is _incredible_!”

Her outfit today comes in various shades of cotton-candy blue, pink, and purple, topped off with a cardigan so chunky her hair keeps getting caught on it. Her eyes are lit up like cherry bombs.

“Okay, okay,” she says, grabbing both of his hands in both of hers. “Tell me everything. When did this _happen?_ ”

Derek swallows, looks over her head. “Um. You remember that day he came to cross country training?”

Ford nods emphatically.

“We kind of--” he tries to phrase it appropriately. “We had a little bit of a moment.”

“What does that _mean?”_ Ford squeals.

“It means I kissed him,” Derek says, cringing at the memory. “And things kind of-- happened from there?”

Ford drops her forehead heavily onto his kneecaps. It kind of hurts for Derek, but she doesn’t react to the impact at all. “You ballsy motherfucker,” Ford says. “You just planted one on the handsomest, straightest human bench press in the greater Chicago metropolitan area, and this shit happened for you. This is ridiculous. I need to start doing stupid stuff.”

“Can’t say I recommend it wholeheartedly,” Derek says carefully.

“You’re not single anymore and you cannot give me advice,” Ford says, whipping her head up to look at him. “Oh my god, does this mean you’re over Chris?”

Ford had been the one person on the entire earth that knew how Derek felt about Chris. It would have been impossible to keep from her, really; Derek might be the one who read romance novels, but Ford considered the romantic potential of everyone she’d ever met with everyone else she’d ever met. “I guess so,” Derek says, which is mostly untrue, but not entirely. “Me and Will just really clicked all of a sudden.”

Untying and then re-tying her baby-pink headband, Ford tuts. “Big things happening, Nurse. Big things. Upperclassman things. Don’t friendship-dump me for saying this, but I’m honestly really glad you’re dating a little bit. I think it’s good for you.”

She says it in her brusque, managerial way, but only because she knows he’ll brush it off if he thinks it’s too sappy. Derek feels the knife twist just a little bit more.

“Is Mariam, like, totally thrilled?” she asks.

 _Twist_. “I, uh,” he says. “I haven’t told her yet?”


	13. shovel talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [arbitrary reasons for nursey and dex to touch intensifies]

The fact of the matter is, Derek thinks as he waits for Mariam to pick up the FaceTime call, that he doesn’t know how.

He’s managed to avoid her, mostly, for the past couple of weeks. The last time they talked was the weekend before the letters got out. Since then she has (as promised) continued to send him pictures of lizards, her going-out outfits, and annoying things her roommates have done, and Derek has sent back gifs and approval and Snapchats where only the way top of his head shows, with captions as short as he can make them without sounding mad. It is completely fine to hear what Mariam is up to and react appropriately, but he is horrified by the prospect of hearing her ask “What’s up?”

You know, when she can see Derek’s face and everything.

“What’s up?” he mutters to himself. “Oh, I don’t know Mariam, just school and running and stuff. Hey, I don’t go hide in the theater and read romance novels during lunch anymore! Why, you ask? Oh, well I’ve been sitting with my boyfriend’s friends. Why didn’t I tell you I had a boyfriend? I don’t know, maybe because we’re pretending to date for public relations reasons. Like, for instance, because I need to smooth over the whole thing where I sent your boyfriend a love letter, but I promise you’re going to think this is funny-”

Mariam finally picks up. “Hey D!”

He smiles wide. He can’t not—he forgets how much he misses people until he sees them again, and Mariam looks both exactly the same and older. She’s tanner than Derek, he‘s pretty sure, which almost never happens, and she has two small gold hoops in the cartilage of her left ear.

“Took you long enough,” he says. “I thought you decided to go out to, like, a koala parade instead of talking to me.”

“I know that you don’t think that’s what actually happens in Australia on a day-to-day basis,” Mariam says. “But I still kind of feel like I need to check.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “So, what’s up with you?” he asks, fiddling with the laptop charger cable. “Is that new hair?”

“Nuh-uh,” Mariam says. “You know I just got my hair done because I sent you a picture of it, because _I_ actually send you updates on my life! I want to know what _you’re_ up to.”

Shit. “Oh, you know. Stuff.”

As if that wasn’t the most suspicious possible answer to that question. He kicks himself.

“Stuff,” Mariam echoes.

“Yeah,” Derek says. “Stuff, like, um, I’m helping Lou with her academic fair project tonight, which is cool. We’re doing a _Much Ado About Nothing_ diorama with a little video playing in the middle of it, you know, like they’re at a play.”

Mariam cocks her head in a way that might be pity but might also be disapproval. “It’s a Friday night.”

He shrugs, but it feels jerky and defensive. “You were the one who told me to be the responsible big sibling.”

A beat passes, during which Mariam silently squints at him, mouth half-open, and Derek wonders if he hurt her feelings. But then she pulls everything back in order. “Okay, I guess. Um, have you talked to Chris at all recently?”

Derek feels a sudden need to sprint to the bathroom. “Uh, no?” he says, voice pitching higher. “What could I possibly be talking to Chris about?”

Now she really looks at him oddly, and he tries to school his body language into something reasonable. “I don’t know, because he’s your friend and he lives three feet away? I just was wondering if he’s doing okay, I don’t—"

“He seems fine!” Derek interrupts. “Everything’s chill. Uh, I really gotta get going on this project for Lou, though, so I’m gonna—I gotta go.”

“Okay, I guess—is something wrong?” he can just barely Mariam say as he snaps his laptop closed.

He breathes in for three, out for five. She doesn’t know.

She can't possibly.

 

He’s in costume when the doorbell rings: a plastic crown, running tights, his own velvet blazer, and what the girls call a “floofy shirt” but is really one of Mariam’s left-behind sundresses. It pinches uncomfortably at Derek’s waist, even without all the buttons done up. Imani is in charge of wardrobe; Kayla is on script. Georgia, the very businesslike daughter of an Iranian anesthesiologist who works with Derek’s mom, is directing. Lou is doing something, probably, but it’s not clear what. None of them top five feet, but that doesn’t stop them from gleefully barking orders at Derek.

“Tell them to come back later,” Lou calls as Derek crosses the foyer. “We’re making _art._ ”

“George is making art,” Derek says, and it’s true that she takes mise-en-scène very seriously. “ _You_ are just bossing me around.”

He opens the front door to a blast of Chicago wind and a wall of hunched-over redhead. “Go away,” Derek says drily. “We’re making art.”

“I can see that,” Will says, with an amused nod to Derek’s outfit. “This is a cute look for you.”

“I make a lot of sacrifices for my craft,” Derek replies. He pulls the door closed a little bit further to hide the Don Pedro getup from Will and Will from Lou and her friends, who are eavesdropping loudly around the corner. “Can I help you with something?”

“Man, it’s cold out,” Will says pointedly.

His cheeks and protruding ears are a wind-bitten pink. Derek can hear the chorus of pre-teen whispering from behind him, but then Will sticks his lower lip out, and he finally relents, standing aside to let him in. “All right, Oliver Twist.”

Will wears the smile of a popular kid on a weekend, the electric kind that stretches across his face but also winds through the alive-ness of his posture. The girls scurry back into the living room as both the freezing air and the boys come in, but they still peek unsubtly around the doorway. “Hi, Aisha Louise,” Will says with a little wave, and they fall back, giggling.

“So is that what you’re wearing?” Will asks, to Derek this time. The hair over his ears curls up in a way that Derek can only describe as _puckish_.

“You need a haircut,” he says. “Wearing to what?”

He can see his reflection in the hallway mirror, and he frowns at himself. He almost doesn’t hear Will say, “To Justin’s party,” but it’s impossible to miss the way the living room erupts in squeals at the thought.

“Sorry, party?” Derek says, pulling his blazer around himself more tightly to hide the dress’s swooping neckline. He feels like a blind mole getting rudely pulled out of the ground.

“Contract,” Will says in a sing-song whisper, then, louder: “Did you not read my note?”

Truth be told, Derek did not read the note. He hasn’t read any of them, just tossed them, unopened, into the chaos of his top desk drawer. He hadn't been sure that they said anything at all. Even if they did, they felt too private. Like Will’s business.

“Was that the pizza?” Derek’s mom asks as she emerges from her office, pulling her reading glasses up to the top of her head.

“Just me, sorry to disappoint,” Will says, with a disarming Archie-comics smile.

Derek wants to disappear into the floor. “Mom, you’ve met Will,” he says instead.

“Good god,” she says. “I once met a little kid named Will Poindexter who was missing his two front teeth, but that was apparently a million years ago.”

“It’s nice to see you again, Dr. Nurse.”

Will shakes her hand with a kind of earnest ease that Derek has never mastered around adults. He can already tell that his mom is charmed, and Derek is a little charmed too, not least by the fact that Will remembered to call his mom Doctor. She throws out any piece of mail that calls her Mrs. Nurse.

“Oh, please, call me Analeigh,” she says, looking between them. “So, what’s your plan for tonight?”

“Well, I was actually going to take Derek to a party,” Will says. The way he toys with his truck keys is becoming familiar. “If that’s okay with you, of course-- Justin’s parents will be there, and I’ll bring him home early.”

“And I was just telling Will,” Derek interrupts, not-accidentally elbowing Will in the side as he puts his hands on his hips. “That I promised Lou I’d help her with her academic fair project.” He tries to telepathically project his desire to stay home directly into his mom’s brain.

“Oh, but that sounds so fun!” she says, because apparently family bonds mean _nothing_ in this house.

Lou, or Judas #2, takes her cue to pipe in: “We’re totally done filming for now, Mom. We wanted to start doing nails anyway.”

If she wasn’t standing on the other side of Will, Derek would give Lou the Vulcan death grip, but she’s unreachable. And judging by the way she’s smiling at him, she knows it. “No, I really can’t--” Derek begins to say, but he is drowned out by a chorus of tweens groaning “ _noooooooo_.”

“Come _on_ , Derek,” Lou says.

“Yeah, come on Derek,” Will parrots, eyes sparkling.

There is no mercy from anyone, not even Georgia, who is usually Derek’s favorite. He looks around at all of them one last time and then groans. “Fine, just let me change,” he concedes and starts up the stairs.

Behind him, he can hear his mom ask Will if she needs to give him the shovel talk.

“I’d be honored,” Will says.

 

In other news, Justin lives in a castle. It’s a little ways out of town, but still close enough to the city to be pricey, and surrounded on all sides by enormous trees that reflect in all the plate-glass windows, making the house itself seem like a mirage tucked into the landscape. Like, Derek is aware that his family has money. Their house is objectively very nice. But Justin’s is-- it doesn’t even look like a house, if he’s being honest. It looks like a modern art museum designed by Lamborghini.

“Goddamn,” he says, peering up through Will’s windshield.

“I know, right?” Will replies. “Even their hand towels feel like-- like baby kittens, or something. Last time I was here, I got kind of drunk and stole one.”

A few leggy girls pile out of a car on the far side of the driveway, and Derek laughs at image of a drunk Poindexter surreptitiously shoving a microfiber down his jeans. The shutter on Will’s phone camera clicks.

“What was that for?” Derek asks, blinking the flash away.

Will taps his phone screen a few times, then turns it toward Derek so he can see that he’s now the background photo. “You should do it, too,” Will says. “Do you even have a boyfriend if he's not all over your phone?”

It’s a decent picture, actually. A little blurry, but you can tell by Derek’s smile and the crinkles around his eyes that he’s mid-laugh, and he stands out almost ethereally against the navy-blue night outside Will’s truck window. He’s not really used to people taking pictures like that. His mom takes corny ones, makes the three of them pose in front of the softball dugout or their science projects or whatever, but he’s not used to seeing himself look-- just the way people see him.

It’s kind of nice.

Will walks all the way around the truck to open the door for him, which is also nice, but Derek takes a second to pout at him. He indulges his babyish side: it’s cold out, and he’s not sure he likes his outfit anyway, and the music coming from inside is already too loud. “Do I have to go?” Derek asks, and he takes the picture right as Will starts to roll his eyes.

“Oh, come on,” he says, reaching for the phone, and Derek leans away to protect it as he taps through the settings.

“Nope,” he squawks, falling into the driver’s seat. “Nope, this is perfect, this looks just like you.”

Will is halfway on top of him when Derek holds up his phone screen, and he pulls back just a little to focus on the photo of himself looking adorably grouchy, one hand wrapped around the top of the truck door. “I hate you,” he says.

“Aww, I think it’s cute,” Derek replies, propping himself up on one elbow. The center console is kind of digging into his back, but he doesn’t really want to move. Will doesn’t seem like he’s in any big hurry either. He frowns at the picture, but seems to accept it, resting his head on Derek’s stomach briefly. His phone buzzes. They both ignore it. The trees outside swing together and apart in the wind, with a comforting sound like someone running their fingers through your hair.

“Do you have something in your pocket?” Will asks.

“That’s a deeply overused line, my dude,” Derek replies.

Will scrambles off of him and back to standing, embarrassed. “No, no, I meant, like,” he starts. “Not that. Literally, what do you have in your pocket. Is that your notebook?”

Derek shrugs innocently. “That’d be a weird thing to bring to a party,” he says, and the covers of the little Moleskine dig into his hip as he sits up.

“Nope,” Will says. “The point of going to a party is that you don’t hide in a corner and doodle. Gimme.”

He holds out a hand with what Derek can only imagine is his team-captain authority, then wiggles his fingers. After a second, his right eyebrow pops up.

“Fine,” Derek says, plopping it into the outstretched, freckled hand. “But I’ll want that back.”

“Of course,” Will says, ushering him out of the car and up the driveway.

It’s the first properly cold night of the year. Derek can see his breath sweep out into the air in front of him; he shoves his hands deep in his jacket pockets as they approach Justin’s front door. If there is a spot on his stomach that still feels warm-- well, that’s not really anyone's business.


	14. adamandjustin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there are a lot of objective facts about high school men's soccer teams that i'm going to ignore for this fic. just know that ahead of time? see you wednesday!!

Will grabs Derek’s hand to guide him through the undulating crowd of high schoolers. He’s kind of thankful for that, given the number of people and the lack of lighting and the way that all of the surfaces in the Oluransi home look polished and slippery. The party doesn’t look like _American Pie_ or anything, but it’s definitely not shabby: Justin’s parents are either absolutely not home, or they are remarkably chill with the amount of alcohol on the kitchen counter. He suspects it’s the former.

“You’ve met Adam and Justin,” Will says, and Derek maybe has but isn’t sure. They’re just people that everyone knows about, the way Will and March are. Will says it the way everyone does-- all blurred together like AdamandJustin. Adam Birkholtz and Justin Oluransi have been inseparable since middle school, play complementary center-back defenders on the soccer team, and are always, one way or another, in physical contact with each other. Speculation is for chumps, but like. If you had asked Derek to guess who the closeted gay kid at the popular table was before this month, Will wouldn’t have been his first instinct.

AdamandJustin are absolutely destroying somebody at beer pong when they approach. “What’s up, guys?” Will asks, and they finish an honest-to-god best friend handshake before turning to greet them.

“Hey, man!” Justin says, pulling Will into a flawless bro-hug. “Derek, bro, it is an honor to have you joining us.”

“Thanks, dude,” Derek starts to say, before he is interrupted by the ridiculously long arm of Adam Birkholtz laying over his shoulders. He is clearly somewhat drunker than Justin.

“Is it true your mom is Jack Zimmermann’s baby doctor?” he says, with the gravitas of a judge at a witch trial. He leans in so close that Derek can see the outlines of his contact lenses.

He’s never sure what the privacy conditions on his mom’s job are, honestly. But he’s pretty sure Eric Bittle left a public and extremely complimentary Yelp review on the practice’s page, so. “Uh, yes?” Derek says, taking a half-step back before he can really solidify his balance.

Adam tilts his chin all the way up to the heavens like a martyr in a medieval painting and inhales deeply through his nose. “That’s so _fucking_ cool.”

“So, you play?” Justin asks, plucking a ping-pong ball out of the cup in front of him and flooring the three inches of beer inside.

“Not well,” Derek says, looking around for a way out of the inevitable humiliation of an activity that involves that much hand-eye coordination. There are a few black leather couches nearby, occupied by a smattering of girls holding red Solo cups. He sees a hand pop up and hears someone say “Derek!” which is unsettling but he’ll take what he can get. “I’m just gonna-- I’ll be back,” he says, squeezing Will’s forearm briefly before moving away.

Will looks at him like he’s grown another head, which makes sense when Adam and Justin’s pong opponents move slightly to reveal that the person calling him is none other than the ice queen herself. She looks terrifying and also hot, hair up in a faux-messy bun to reveal her big silver hoop earrings, black eyeliner turning gracefully out from the corners of her eyes. But he’s already started moving in that direction, and if March wants to play mind games with him, he won’t give her the satisfaction of seeing him chicken out.

“Hey, ladies,” he says casually, settling down a few couch cushions away.

“Hi, Der,” March replies sweetly. “ _So_ cute to see you and Will out and about together. You must be having a lot of fun leaving the house for once.”

She’s accompanied by a pretty brunette that he recognizes from the year below them, but can’t remember the name of. “Hi,” Derek says to her, in lieu of responding to March.

“Hi,” she says. “I don’t think I’ve met you, but I’m Farmer. Caitlin, but go with Farmer.”

She sticks out her hand to shake, which strikes Derek as charmingly serious. Now he remembers her: a transfer from southern California at the beginning of last year. She’s supposed to be next in line for captain as soon as March’s tenure is over. He wonders if March keeps her close because she likes her or because she’s competition, and then he wonders if that’s a sexist thought to have. “Derek,” he replies.

“Sure, I know who you are,” she says, which Derek is not used to in the slightest. “You and Will just started dating, right?”

“A couple of weeks ago, yeah,” he says.

Farmer makes a considering noise. “I think it’s nice,” she says. “He looks really happy.”

That can’t be true, but he glances over toward the beer pong table involuntarily. Will is in the middle of laughing at something Adam said, head thrown back and shoulders shaking, but he looks over toward Derek as if to check on him. Derek gives him a small, everything’s-fine smile and glances away quickly. He does not fight the pink that he can feel surfacing in his cheeks. That makes it seem more realistic, he tells himself. “Yeah, it’s going pretty well.”

“And Will is _great_ with his hands, right?” March says, wiggling her fingers suggestively. Derek would do a spit take if he was holding a drink. _Ew, ew, ew_ , he thinks, trying not to look as taken aback as he feels.

“Excuse me?” he says, and Farmer slaps March on the shoulder.

She just giggles and rolls her eyes. “I mean, come on. You don’t have to be shy about the perks. It’s not like you guys are, like, serious. Derek doesn’t date-date,” she says to Farmer, matter-of-fact and motherly. “He doesn’t really do-- oh, what would you call it. Caring about things?”

March tucks a loose curl behind her right ear and cocks her head toward Derek as if she didn’t just phase into full demon mode. She takes a slow, dainty sip of her drink, really leaning into the fact that Derek has no idea what to say next.

“Hey babe,” Will says, leaning over the back of the couch between Derek and March to hand him a drink of his own. “What’s happening?”

Derek has never been so grateful for his inability, either real or pretended, to read a room.

“Just catching up,” March says. “Farmer, should we go find something interesting to do? I think we should.”

She pushes herself off the couch with a simpering smile, followed closely by an apologetic-looking Farmer. Derek salutes them with his cup as they walk away.

“I can’t believe she fucking won that interaction,” he says. “What’s this?”

“Screwdriver,” Will replies, vaulting gracefully over the back of the couch and settling with his arm over Derek’s shoulders. “It’s kind of strong, but I figured you might need it, what with--” he gestures in March’s general direction.

“She doesn’t bother me,” Derek insists, letting his head settle back into  Will’s shoulder. Just a little. He can feel Will’s chest move as he laughs gently.

“She bothers everyone,” Will says. “I dated her for like two years and she bothered me.”

After that little run-in, he finds that he _so badly_ wants to ask if Will and March had sex. Like, if Will himself is willing to say that he’s better at physical stuff, that means something, right? But he also doesn’t actually like girls. And she’d mentioned his hands, not his-- um. Derek’s not a prude, he doesn’t think, but he has a very, very short list of people he’s even kissed, much less done anything else with. His information about sex is all theoretical-- both scientific, via his mom, and wildly exaggerated, via the fantasies of authors named things like Vivian Silk and Charlotte LaCœur. He still has no idea what the fuck March’s little finger-wiggle could have meant. It went, like, sideways? He takes a long swig of the screwdriver. These people’s tier of teenager-hood feels like a different universe.

And now he’s staring at Will’s hands, which are objectively very nice. Graceful. They always seem to be in the right places.

Derek wants to get up from the couch and walk into the pool that he can see through the sliding glass door.

“Hey, take a picture with me,” Will says, breaking Derek out of his train of thought with fantastic timing.

He tilts his head into Will’s neck and smiles up at his phone, trying to look more relaxed than he feels. _Click._ He squirms, giggling, when Will turns to kiss his cheek.

 

Derek is not drunk. Not that he has a lot of experience in the field, but he’s only on his second screwdriver, which he remembers from Driver’s Ed is not enough to put a person his size over the legal limit. Still, he’s definitely tipsy. Ellie reaches up to poke him in the cheeks. “Aww, you’re a giggly drunk,” she says. “That’s adorable.”

“Whatever,” he says with an eyeroll that takes more concentration than usual. “You’re secretly a jock when you’re drunk. I’m telling your art friends.”

He’d been surprised to see her at one of these parties, but even more surprised at her rapport with all the enormous athletes wandering around. They all reach out for those mysterious hand-slappy greetings that you get, like, installed in your brain when you join a team sport. Adam and Justin had hugged her with an enthusiasm that made Derek fear for her spine a little bit.

“I help out with the soccer team,” she says, shrugging. “My cousin is the coach, so she pays me to take care of their equipment and stuff. Last year she got laryngitis so I got to yell at them for her. That was fun.”

She’s wearing all black, as always, and casually lording over the beer pong table. Derek had watched her wipe the floor with Adam and Justin, and they immediately dragged a kitchen stool over so that she could sit and play referee. He leans on the back of said stool and takes another sip of his drink.

“Why do they call you Lardo?” he blurts. “Is that, like, hazing?”

Ellie bursts into laughter. Derek is briefly mesmerized by the way each of her earrings catches the light; he thinks there are more of them every time he sees her. “No, dude, it’s a nickname. Larissa,” she says, holding out her left hand, and then “Duan,” holding out her right hand. Then she claps them together. “Lardo. Rans and Holtzy-- Justin and Adam-- come up with them for everybody. If you don’t have one already, it’s definitely coming.”

“Hmm,” Derek says, intrigued at the prospect. It sounds nice, and the world feels soft and warm. “You’re pretty.”

“And you’re a lightweight,” Ellie says, then sucks in air through her teeth. “Dude, don’t look now, but March definitely just followed your man into the bathroom.”

“My man?” Derek says blearily.

Ellie scoffs, takes his drink, settles it on the counter behind them. “Yeah, the one you wrote a love letter to?”

Right. Will. “Shh,” he says, resting his head on top of hers and wiggling it around. “Don’t tell anybody.”

“Chyeah, of course not,” she says. “I’d just keep an eye out for that girl, if I were you.”

“Ugh,” he replies, because that’s what someone with a real boyfriend would say upon finding out that his ex is trying to corner him in bathrooms. “Relationships are complicated.”

God, Derek is glad he isn’t in one.


	15. that whole air-of-mystery thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> semi-spoilery notes abt more sensitive context at the end. see u on friday!!

They’re pulling into a parking spot in front of Annie’s when Derek remembers to ask. “So, what did March want?”

Will doesn’t look over at him, but it looks like it takes effort. He shifts into park and stares through the warmly-lit front window of the cafe. “You saw that, huh?”

Derek’s head feels kind of hot, and he presses it against the passenger-side window. “Ellie said she saw her follow you into the bathroom, but I didn’t actually see anything.”

“She didn’t want anything, really,” Will says after a beat. “Just to, like, mess with me. Tell me that this is all a terrible idea. You know how she can be.”

“Chyeah, do I,” Derek replies. “Doesn’t she have a new boy toy to distract her? No offense.”

“None taken,” Will says. “And yeah, one of April’s friends from U Chicago. But she still makes time to fuck with me, I guess.”

“Hm,” Derek says.

He hates how this line of conversation makes him sound. Like he’s jealous, or has a right to be. It’s just curiosity, Derek thinks. March and her presence in people’s lives is an eternal mystery to him. Still, it’s too quiet in the truck cab, and quieter still when Will turns the engine off.

“All right, Poindexter,” Derek says, sitting up straight. “You gonna buy me a croissant?”

 

Mandy looks inordinately pleased to see them in the cafe together again. “Anything else?” she asks, sliding a few extra napkins toward Derek, who’s just spilled about ten percent of his hot chocolate on the table. He’s never had to pretend to be sober before, and it’s more difficult than he thought.

“No thanks, Mandy,” Will replies for both of them.

She smiles at him, pats Derek on the shoulder, and leaves.

“She thinks we’re a cute couple, doesn’t she,” Will says with amusement in his voice.

Derek sticks his tongue out at Will. “I don’t think it’s specific to you,” Derek says. “I’ve been coming in here since I was a kid and she’s just relieved I’m finally with a cute stranger instead of reading a book with one on the cover. In this one realm, Will Poindexter,  _ you _ are an accessory to  _ me _ .”

Will sits back and clicks his tongue. “You think I’m cute.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Why am I the first person you’ve dated, anyway?” Will asks, not taking the bait.

Derek lifts his mug to his lips and closes his eyes, letting the steam warm up his face. “We’re not dating.”

“You know what I mean,” he replies. “Like, I get that there isn’t exactly an army of guys who like guys around, especially in high school, but you’re pan, right? I’m sure you’ve liked girls at school before. So what’s stopping you?”

Derek hums, listening to Will shift in his chair. “I think people have to want to date you in order for you to date,” he says.

Will actually laughs out loud, and Derek opens his eyes just to glare at him. He’s been a little weird and tense ever since he got back from the aforementioned bathroom trip, hard-cornered and loud, acting somewhat more like the teen-movie jock Derek had expected him to be before the fake-dating started. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” he says. “You’re smart, you’re hot, and you have that whole air-of-mystery thing going on, so I know that people being interested in you isn’t the problem.”

Something in his brain starts flailing around when Will says he’s hot, but Derek refuses to be flattered. Will is usually good enough with Derek’s boundaries that he clearly knows where they are, and he’s just deciding to stomp all over them for some reason. “I guess I just never wanted to,” he says icily.

“Bullshit!” Will exclaims, and Derek wishes he’d stop being so loud. “Bullshit. You write people love letters. You’re not actually as detached as you let everybody think you are.”

“I don’t know, Will!” Derek says, voice rising to just short of a yell. “Why don’t I date? Why did you date March for two years?! We’re all dumb, horny, defensive idiots. Whatever.”

He knows, based on Will’s body language, that he freaked out a little more than he intended to. Will has that  _ yikes _ face, with the lips pulled in and the eyes wide, that everyone always gets when Derek shows that he’s upset. Like he’s having a meltdown he’s too old for. Derek pops in a bite of bagel and washes it down his suddenly-dry throat with a sip of hot chocolate, waiting for Will to snipe back at him.

It doesn’t happen.

Will huffs out a breath, shoulders sagging. “I thought about that a lot, actually,” he says. He tucks his hands in his jacket pockets. “I mean, when me and March first got together, I didn’t  _ know- _ know that I was gay. Like, I thought, she’s really pretty, and she likes me, and my friends all say it’s a great idea. And she wasn’t--” he pauses, rests his wrists on the table, starts fiddling with his cuffs. “She’s not always mean, you know? I mean, she can be really shitty, but she’s funny and sharp, too. And she can be-- supportive. If she’s on your side, it makes you feel like maybe you’re not doing so bad.”

Head bent toward the table, Will looks small and shell-less, like saying these things requires him to disengage every level of defense he has. Derek is still wary, but he also possesses a laser-bright awareness that right now, if he tried, he could really hurt Will. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “I remember that about her.”

“Like, when my dad left summer before last?” Will continues. “I know every kid whose parents split up feels like that, but I thought my world ended. He was totally fine without us, started dating some lady from his work who had littler, cuter kids, and me and my mom and my brother were still gutted. And March was really good, you know? She’d get all fierce and tell me that I had to remember that it wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t my fault. But then she would turn around and be horrible to somebody else. Once I realized that I could never really like her like that, the assholery actually kind of helped. I wasn’t fucking over this person who cared about me, not really, because she was a bad person.”

He folds his hands and looks directly at Derek with his round, maple eyes. It feels heavy, material, like he’s giving Derek something. “So. That’s why.”

The lamp overhead buzzes gently. Derek blinks down an emotion that he hadn’t realized was rising up through him, swallows past how tight his throat feels. Something about the vodka and the dark outside and the way his hands won’t quite connect to his brain makes him feel that the two of them are outside of actual time, that they are in a bubble of no consequences. He is just this side of out-of-control, like he’s walking with a strong wind at his back.

“I don’t date because it’s terrifying,” he says almost without thinking. “I think about it a lot. I read all these novels about it, watch all these movies. Vikings falling in love with professors, pirates falling in love with their rivals, medieval princes falling in love with peasants, all of it. It sounds beautiful. I want it to happen to me, and when I picture it happening to me, I feel something, like, lifting. Kind of around here,” he says, gesturing to his diaphragm.

He takes a deep breath. “I write love letters, like you said. And I like those fantasies, but it’s  _ because _ they’re fantasies. In real life, being by myself is safe. If I actually think that I like someone or they like me, I can’t-- I can’t do anything about it. Because, like, what if it does actually work out, right? What if I really love somebody and they love me, and we depend on each other, and then something bad happens? The more attached you are, the more you can hurt people if--”

A slender thread of humiliation winds its way down from whichever part of his brain is always trying to fuck him over, and he pinches the bridge of his nose, tries to force it and the little spark in his sinuses that tells him he’s threatening to cry back whence they came. “If you’re all of a sudden not there anymore,” he finishes.

Will just looks at him, steady as a rock, for a moment. “Like your dad,” he says.

Derek nods, then shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s pretty old news. I’m just-- melodramatic, sometimes.”

“I don’t think stuff like that is ever really old news, Derek,” Will replies gently. 

They both fidget with their mugs for a second, and then make eye contact again. “Hey, being with me isn’t so bad, though, right?” Will asks.

“Nah, that’s pretty chill,” Derek says honestly, to which Will gives a small, private smile. “I mean, it’s not real, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

And suddenly, the air between them is tight and crystalline. The cool-kid armor folds back up along Will’s arms and over his face, and he’s suddenly that person again, the one Derek had always assumed he was. Derek realizes that his hot chocolate went cold while they were talking.

“Right,” Will says. “It’s a good thing you can, like, turn it on and off when you need to.”

He pulls correct change out of his wallet and stands up from the table. “Are you ready to get out of here?”

_ What’d I say? _ Derek wants to ask.  _ What did I just do wrong, _ but the little terror-voices inside him scream at him not to, so he doesn’t. “You okay, dude?” he says instead.

“Of course,” Will says, glancing away from Derek and at his phone. “I’m totally chill.”

 

Nobody’s awake when Derek gets home, and he can’t decide if he likes that or not. The island in the kitchen is strewn with paper plates and pizza boxes; the coffee table with nail polish bottles and loose cotton balls. He feels oddly guilty as he moves through the dark stairwell up to his room, but also sort of cleared-out, like talking to Will took them both through the emotional carwash. The door to his bedroom creaks gently as he walks in, strips off his coat, pats down his pockets for his wallet and phone. The notebook isn’t there, he realizes. He’ll just get it from Will on Monday; there’s nothing particularly embarrassing in it, and he doesn’t think Will would snoop around like that anyway.

Still. He hadn’t thought about it once all night. There was too much going on.

Mariam would be proud, if he could tell her about it.

His bedroom door creaks again, and he turns to see Lou poke her head in.

“It’s pretty late, habibti,” he murmurs.

She looks cozy and a little sleepy, silk scarf wrapped around her curls. It’s teal, to match her pajamas, because of course it is. “How was the party?” she whispers.

“It was actually really fun,” he says, and he means it.

She nods seriously, looks down at the floor, then back up at him. “Do you like hanging out with Will?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he says, meaning that too. “But I think he’s a little mad at me right now.”

Lou is getting old enough to be snarky and teenagery sometimes, but she is still Derek’s baby sister, and she pads across the room to put her arms around his middle. He rests his chin on top of her head. As the responsible oldest sibling, he should probably tell her to go to bed, but he puts it off for a minute, breathing in the reassuring strawberry smell of the curl cream both his sisters use. Behind him, his phone pings for attention.

“I don’t think he’s mad at you,” Lou says, reaching behind him to pick it up.

The notification is from Instagram:  _ wj_dex has tagged you in a photo _ . When he swipes it open, there’s the picture from a few hours ago-- Will kissing his cheek, Derek’s face crumpled up in laughter. He doesn’t remember reaching up to hold the hand that Will had draped over his shoulder, but apparently he had, because their fingers are woven together on the right side of the frame in a way that surprises Derek by looking completely natural. _Always a good time w/you,_ the caption says.

“Cuuuuute,” Lou coos, and Derek flicks her temple gently.

“You should be asleep,” he says, turning the phone screen away from her as he comments. She squawks in protest as he pushes her out and shuts the door.

 

His phone lights up one last time as he lies in bed in the dark.

 

wj_dex:  _ Always a good time w/you _

dereknursee: _ur_ _so welcome_ __

wj_dex: ♥

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in this chapter, will opens up about some of the more difficult aspects of coming out for him, especially RE: dating a girl when he's closeted. he doesn't have a super healthy attitude toward the situation, but i promise we will get there. derek talks vaguely about losing his dad.


	16. no bite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for more homophobia in this chapter-- spoilery details in the end notes. i promise the angst goes downhill from here?

So it’s not so bad. Dating Will. He had imagined it as a chore, a necessary evil, but Derek finds himself enjoying it more and more: becoming friends with Will’s friends, having plans on weekends, sitting as close as he wants to Will in the cafeteria so that their knees knock together and stealing fries off his plate when they go to Steak ‘n Shake and holding his hand as they maneuver through crowded public spaces and making him do that thing at Derek with his eyes, where he wants to roll them but still looks fond and pleased. It’s all of the things he hoped dating would be like, but without any of the risk, and it’s-- fun. Actually.

“No, there’s something there,” Justin says, taking a sip of Adam’s blue Gatorade without asking. “And—Andy? Andromedon? N and D—hey, Nurse, what’s your middle name?”

“Malik,” he says. “Like Zayn’s last name.”

“Okay, see, I don’t think I can do anything with that,” Adam says.

“I kind of hate that you know we know how to spell that,” Justin adds.

Ellie was not kidding about the nicknames. Like, at all. They’ve been working nonstop on Derek’s for something close to two weeks.

Derek shrugs. “Hey, no shame in recognizing one of the great musical achievements of the 21st century.”

“So is your mom’s name Doctor Nurse?” a sophomore from down the table butts in. Derek so far only knows him as Tango, because AdamandJustin refuse to introduce him as anything else.

“Sure is,” Derek replies.

“That’s hilarious,” Connor-- Whiskey-- says drily. He’s still quiet, like he is in Derek’s homeroom, but he’s kind of funny, too. He’s also the only one of Will’s friends that’s noticeably weird about the fact that Will has a boyfriend, kind of clams up whenever they act too much like a couple, but Derek tries not to assume the worst.

He just. He likes Will’s friends. A lot.

He’ll miss them when all of this is over.

“Nursey,” AdamandJustin say in unison, and Derek’s head snaps toward them.

“See, it’s perfect,” Justin says.

“I don’t know, isn’t it kind of basic?” Will says, swinging a leg over the bench next to Derek. He is still annoyingly adept at the whole boyfriend thing-- hooks his ankle over Derek’s, hands him a Vitamin Water from the lunch line. Tucked in between Will’s fingers and the side of the bottle is another note, and Derek elbows him gently and smiles. The notes get a little less fanfare now. They feel more like Derek’s business. He still doesn’t read them, though, just tosses them in the same drawer and lets them get lost in the mess.

“Hot take coming from you, Sexy Dexy,” Adam shoots back.

The cafeteria is loud and crowded, but less overwhelming than it used to be. It’s raining today, so a lot of the kids that normally eat behind the gym or on picnic tables are forced into the caf. The downpour is audible on the roof overhead, a pleasant swarm of drumbeats, and all the freshmen are wearing rainboots like a herd of Paddington bears. Derek keeps vague tabs on the conversation. Really, he’s people-watching, and thinking tangentially about how he can feel Will’s anklebone next to his own, cataloging it away in a section of his head that he’s starting to call “what-it-would-be-like.”

Which is, of course, the moment that he locks eyes with Chris.

As soon as he sees Derek, Chris’ face shuts down-- not in sadness, he realizes, but in anger. Chris is mad at him. And a little hurt around the eyes. He lets Derek feel the full weight of the unhappiness in his gaze for one beat, then two, and Derek owes their friendship enough that he knows he shouldn’t look away. He deserves this.

They haven’t spoken since that day on the bleachers. Since before the letters went out and Derek’s whole world blew up. Derek ignored all the calls and texts that came in in the first couple of days, the days before he showed up to school on Will Poindexter’s arm. Maybe they hadn’t been as close over the past year or so, but Chris was still embedded in his soul like a chestnut burr. Derek can see that he’s lost some of the energy in his unruly limbs and angular hair and it _hurts_.

Chris finally looks away to pay for his lunch.

Every time he sees Chris at school, it feels this awful. Kind of the same type of awful that it feels to get the progressively less and less-excited messages from Mariam, like she knows Derek is keeping something from her. _Two of the people I love and depend on most think I’m a piece of shit,_ Derek thinks to himself. _What does that say about me?_

“Yo, Nursey!” someone calls.

“What,” Derek says hazily, breaking out of his self-pity party.

Will elbows him teasingly. “Space case. You coming to the soccer game tonight?”

“Yeah, of course,” Derek says with another of his specialty I’m-fine smiles.

Chris is gone when he looks back.

Other than that, it feels like a fantasy version of the world Derek used to live in. Other than that and some other things.

 

True to his word, Derek has been to every home game that he can’t fake a family emergency to escape. He’s never gotten deeply into soccer, but he loves and respects the tradition of yelling at a field full of people sprinting around. His dad was a religious FIFA fan, so it’s a little nostalgic, too. The games start during daylight and end with the floodlights on, crisp air carrying the thudding and shouting like a high-fidelity phone connection.

“Derek!” Farmer calls, patting the seat next to her. The whole section of reliable, soccer-boy adjacent supporters, who Derek secretly thinks of as the WAGs, has been surprisingly nice to him. With the usual exception.

“No March?” he asks, filing in and plopping down on the freezing metal next to her. Ford slides in next, and Farmer stretches her blanket over both of them.

She smiles and shakes her head, the navy-blue bobble on her hat wobbling slightly. Farmer never seems to feel awkward about the bad blood between the two of them, which Derek theorizes is because Farmer is an extremely good person. “Family thing,” she says.

Ford leans past Derek to ask: “Hey Farmer, no offense, but what is a sweet angel like yourself doing being friends with my heinous cousin?”

True to form, she barely blinks. “Well, you know her better than I do, but as a player and a captain I can learn a lot from her. On a personal level, she can be really vicious, and I’m getting better at telling her off for it, but I also don’t think that’s the way she is all the way down. I just don’t think there’s a point to assuming the worst about people.”

“That’s a remarkably fair answer,” Ford says. “Second question: who is _that_?”

She points down the bleachers and up a row or two at a girl with short, dark hair and a thin nose ring. Derek can almost hear the gay alarm bells ringing in Ford’s head, and she has a good eye. This girl is _cute_. And the way she’s leaning back on her hands on the bleacher gives off. An energy. She’s vaguely gymnast-shaped, and she’s planted inside a small gaggle of girls from the year below them.

“Shruti?” Farmer asks, craning her neck backward to look. “She’s Rohan’s little sister. She’s like a sophomore or something.”

Shruti catches Farmer looking and gives a friendly, but efficient, wave. Then she sees Ford, who is also looking, but who takes a solid five seconds to pick up her hand and wave back. This is probably not a calculated decision, but it definitely works, because Shruti looks back the whole time.

 

It happens just after halftime.

“Hey Poindexter,” Derek calls, leaning against the fences at the front of the bleachers. Will jogs over obligingly. He is breathing heavily and his hair is either drenched in water or extremely sweaty, but he still kind of looks good.

“What’s up?”

“Can you give me a ride home later? Ford drove me, but she already got some girl’s number and abandoned me to the elements.” He gives Will his best distraught-suckup-face, leaning pleadingly on the chain-link like an oversized Shirley Temple.

Will laughs at him and shoots him in the leg with his water bottle. “Of course,” he says. “So how’s the game going?”

His breath puffs up into the cold October air like a special effect in a movie. The bleachers are raised about three feet off the ground, and Derek leans forward on his elbows to close some of that distance. Just so Will doesn’t have to use so much breath.

“You’re the one playing it. You tell me,” Derek teases.

Will grabs the chain-link and leans back a little, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, whatever,” Derek says. “You know you’re doing great.”

The coach whistles briefly to call the team over to talk, but Will lingers for a second. “See you after?”

“Yeah,” Derek says, and then on impulse, leans down to kiss him on the cheek. He has to stand on his tiptoes to reach far enough over the fence, and Will’s face is a little clammy from the combination of cold air and exercise, but the look of bright surprise he gives Derek is worth it. A snow-day face. “Go kill ‘em,” Derek says, tousles Will’s hair, and returns to his seat.

At first, Derek wants to laugh. After all the hockey games he’s gone to for Chris, he’s developed a fondness for fights. It just happens so quickly after the second half starts, like a cartoon slapstick routine. Play begins. Hoffeldt loses possession, a center forward from the Coleward Warriors takes a shot on goal, Will saves it, and then suddenly their striker is on the ground with 6’4’’ Adam Birkholtz standing over him like an avenging angel. Tick-tick-tick-tick, like a game of pinball.

He realizes that it is not at all funny when he processes what Adam is yelling. _“I fucking dare you to say it again, you scrawny fucking underfed factory chicken! Go ahead and look me in the eyes and say what you said! You’ve got a death wish, buddy? Cause I’m the fucking genie from--”_

“Hey, let them handle it,” he hears Farmer say. She’s tugging on his hand, and Derek realizes that his body stood up at some point without really consulting with his brain about it. Will is pulling Adam away, but he has a twisted-up look on his face like he’s deciding between clocking the guy himself and starting to cry.

“Yeah, it’s gonna be fine, he won’t get away with that,” one of the other volleyball players says from behind him, squeezing his right shoulder gently.

The referee whistles feverishly, and as arrangements are made to continue the game, Derek wriggles his way up to the front of the bleachers.

“Ellie!” he hisses.

She doesn’t respond, glossy black head bent low over a clipboard.

“ _Ellie!_ ” Derek tries again.

Still nothing.

“Lardo,” he stage-whispers, finally, and she starts walking over to him as soon as she looks up.

“Try not worry about it,” she says quietly as she approaches the fence. “Really. Will’s pissed, but says he’s fine.”

Her eyeliner is smudged onto the left side of her nose. She looks tired and irritated.

“What the fuck did that guy say?” Derek insists.

Ellie sighs, glances back toward the field, then looks back at Derek. “Nothing creative, honestly,” she says. “The same dude said something to Ransom when we played Coleward last year, so we already know he’s a weaselly bigot. We tried to get him penalized that time, too, actually, but it didn’t work. He’s just a blowhard, though. No bite.”

Adam is swapped out for Wicks, presumably to cool down, but nobody gets a penalty kick or a card. The striker is escorted off the field for the rest of the game, nursing the fakest sprained ankle that Derek has ever seen, and he’s done a _lot_ to get out of gym class over the years.

It starts and ends quickly. Derek isn’t sure what happens through the rest of the game besides that at some point, one of Farmer’s teammates holds out a cup of hot chocolate to him, and he takes it.

 

Will turns the heater in his truck up all the way before they leave the school parking lot. He looks a little shaken but not disappointed, as if he was expecting this outcome sometime or another.

“You okay?” Derek asks.

Will rolls his shoulders. “Yeah, I think so. I’ve just never had that happen before.”

“Me either, actually,” Derek says.

Neither of them particularly know what to say next.

“Hey, I’m really sorry,” Derek blurts into the too-hot silence of the cab as they turn onto Derek’s street. “I shouldn’t have--”

“Don’t say that,” Will says, looking over quickly. “Don’t apologize for that. Please. He was just one dick, okay? And he had arms like fucking Twizzlers.”

Derek laughs, but it’s a little choked. He reaches over to squeeze Will’s elbow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one of the opposing players calls will something homophobic mid-game, which starts a smidge of a fight, but we see it from derek's perspective, so there aren't any details about what he said and how.


	17. ugh as if

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am SO sorry this is late!!! i had a big project due today and I completely forgot to write.

“Hey,” Chris says. He shuffles on the mat that the Nurses keep by their side door, the door he always used to use when he came to ask if Derek could hang out. “Can we talk?”

“Hey, C.” Derek still isn’t sure why he opened the door. _Abort abort abort,_ his brain yells, but Chris’s puppy eyes still kill him every time and it’s too cold to leave him outside and he had, after all, hoped that this would all be temporary: dating Will, not talking to Chris, lying so much. He looks at the way Chris’s hands are tucked protectively into the pocket of his hoodie and crumbles a little bit. “Yeah, come in.”

Nobody else is home, so they settle into the big couch in the living room. Derek sits on the armrest facing Chris, sock feet shoved into the space between the cushion and the back of the couch.

“So that letter, huh?” Chris says. He fiddles with the frayed edge of his jeans.

Derek takes a deep breath and lets it out. Three seconds in, five seconds out. Of course they’re jumping right in. “You weren’t ever supposed to see that,” Derek says. “I wrote it, like, forever ago. I don’t even know how you got it. And it doesn’t have to make things weird. I just-- it was a weird crush, and I don’t feel that way anymore.”

Derek is shocked, as he says so, to find that it’s true. He can’t hear the little Mariam-voice inside him that tells him lying does everybody a disservice. Chris is sitting right there looking the same as he always does, light from the sliding glass door drawing his cheekbones into sharp relief, and it doesn’t make Derek’s chest contract anymore. The butterflies, stupid as they always were, are gone. He still feels guilty about all the other stuff, but also hugely relieved.

Chris nods, twists the fringe hanging off the hem of his jeans. “Is that why we didn’t talk as much last year?”

“Um,” Derek says dumbly, before heaving a breath and telling himself to grow up. “Yeah. Kind of.”

“You could have just told me,” Chris says. He looks up at Derek, direct as always. “It wouldn’t have been weird.”

“Yeah it would’ve,” Derek says.

Chris smiles, which still looks like the sun flickering off lake water. “Maybe for a little bit.”

They sit in silence for a second, then Chris blurts, “I just wish you wouldn’t have stopped talking to me. I mean, Mariam broke up with me, and you got all busy with _Poindexter,_ of all people, and it just. It sucked.”

“Sorry, what does that mean?” Derek asks. The tips of his ears are warm.

Chris is quiet for a second.

“We’ve been friends for forever, man. I know you can’t lie to me.” Derek reaches forward to tap Chris’s sneaker where it’s resting on the couch.

He rolls his head from one side to the other, considering. “Um. Why Poindexter?”

Derek half-laughs. “I don’t--”

“Like, I’m happy you’re breaking your no-dating streak. But of all people, why Poindexter? You’re, like, aloof and artsy and mature for your age, and he’s like a white-bread Freddie Prince Whatever in that movie you like so much--”

 _“She’s All That,”_ Derek says automatically, then makes a mental note to punch himself in the face later. “You don’t actually know him.”

“Well, neither did you until like last month, Derek. Like, did he just swoop out of the sky and decide he was suddenly into you?”

Now Derek’s whole face is getting hot, and he doesn’t really know what to do with his hands. “Why are you acting like this? Is it that weird that somebody likes me?”

“Obviously it’s not, and you’re too good for him, but I just-- I don’t like him!” Chris throws his hands up. “I always haven’t liked him! This isn’t coming out of nowhere!”

Derek pinches his hands between his knees to try to stop flailing around. “Chris, he is the first person I have ever dated, and it really doesn’t suck, so why is this the one thing you can’t be happy about? What is your deal?”

“Look, just because _you’re_ pretending to be cool with everything all the time doesn’t mean _I’m_ pretending to be happy,” Chris says matter-of-factly, then frowns. “I didn’t mean that. Well, I did, but I just-- I don’t trust him. I don’t trust that he’s not going to mess around with you and break up with you when he gets bored, and he’ll go back to his perfect jock life and you’re going to be heartbroken. Or something.”

Chris folds his hands, places them in his lap, and shrugs. He doesn’t take any of it back, but he looks a little sorry he said it.

“Well, that’s not exactly your problem,” Derek says, and he thinks: _it’s not a problem at all. Because none of it’s real._

 

Not everyone endorses Will Poindexter. But somehow, in his softly charismatic way, he wins over almost everyone. Lou included.

“Ugh, as _if!_ ” she choruses with Cher, flopping happily back onto her part of the sectional.

Will rescues the popcorn that threatens to bounce off the cushion next to her, then settles back with an arm around Derek’s shoulder. Just to sell it for Lou, he snuggles down onto Will’s chest. Just a little bit.

“That’s you,” Will says, pointing to the screen.

Derek laughs and shoves a kernel of popcorn up at Will’s face without looking. “Yeah, cause people are all over me at school.”

“Oh, with your shoulder-to-waist ratio? They would be if you reined in the forcefield a little bit, babe,” Will says casually, and Derek is a big enough man to admit that he flushes a little bit. It’s just-- pet names, you know?

It’s kind of nice, being on his couch on a Friday night again. The parties are okay, but Derek is still a homebody. Plus he kind of likes having Will to himself. Well, a person to himself. Not specifically Will. At the very least, it’s getting Lou off his back. She cancelled plans to be a nosy third wheel, although she told Derek it was just because she really loves _Clueless._

The room is warm, and Derek is slipping into a little bit of a Whoppers-and-popcorn coma, and Will smells as nice as he always does. Like grapefruit shampoo, but also, today specifically, like cologne. He won this movie night as an exchange for going to dinner at Will’s house, so he got to pick the movie. Will only grumbled a little about 90s movies.

Derek chooses not to spend too much time wondering when they started bargaining to spend more time together rather than less.

“Tag yourself,” Lou pipes up sometime later. “I’m Tai, because I love to start drama, and I’m adorable.”

“I’m Ms. Geist,” Derek says gamely, watching with one eye open. “Because I also have a Shakespeare kink, and I drop my shit everywhere all the time. Don’t tell Mom I said that word in front of you.”

“Oh, please,” Will says, and Derek can feel his chest shake with the snort.

“What?” Derek replies, sitting up on his hands.

Will looks at him in disbelief, then gestures at the car ride scene on the TV screen. “Obviously you’re Paul Rudd? A little pretentious, but with a heart of gold, and you both have really pretty green eyes.”

“Thanks, habibi,” Derek says sleepily, reaching up without looking to pat Will on the head. “Little corny, though.”

“Oh my god, I am _right here,”_ Lou squawks, with some dramatic barfing gestures that Derek hopes she never grows out of, and she reaches over with a pillow to smack them both in the face.

Derek retrieves it from where it lands on his ankles and hands it back to Will, who always has better aim. “You’re the one who came to date night!” he says.

“I hate this I hate this I hate this,” Lou chants, darting down near the kitchen cabinets as Will throws what seems like every throw pillow on the sectional toward her. He only uses his right hand, and he keeps the left around Derek’s shoulders.

 

Much as his love for _Clueless_ is as deep and true as his love for any human being on the planet, Derek is half-asleep by the stairwell scene. He has one eye cracked, but he doesn’t react when Will waves his hand in front of his face, and so he suspects Will’s next sentence is meant only for Lou.

“What does that mean?” he asks. “That word he said earlier. Hab-something.”

“Habibi?” Lou says. Her voice is muffled from where she is half-buried in blankets. “It’s Arabic. You can use it as a pet name for kind of whoever. He’ll say it to me or Mariam every once in a while. I think it means my love, or something like that.”

She pauses, and the music swells from the TV as Josh and Cher finally kiss. “It’s what my dad used to call my mom,” she says quietly.

All Will says is “oh,” but Derek feels Will’s hand tighten on his arm.

They sit in silence for the entirety of the wedding scene, and Derek starts pretending to wake up. Before anyone notices him moving, though, Lou starts: “Hey Will Poindexter?”

“Yes, Aisha Louise?”

“You can call me Lou.”


	18. easier than impossible. which is something.

**_Derek_ **

_ help does this look ok _

**_Ford_ **

_ OOOOOOH u got a tux or something???? u gonna bring a chicken for their table??? _

_ sjfdkfjsdjf bust out that pink suit from when we went to homecoming together last year _

**_Derek_ **

_ i h8 u _

 

Derek hadn’t known how to dress for this. At all. Somehow the faux-90s-unbearable-art-kid looks he usually wears didn’t feel right, but neither did going full formal, so he put on a green sweater and wore his nice winter coat. Like he was going to church with his white grandma, but not on a holiday.

He stands on their screened-in porch for a second, debating whether to knock or ring the doorbell. His fingers are getting a little bit numb. Going to dinner at Will’s house does  _ not _ make him nervous.

“You look really nice,” Will says as he opens the door.

“Thanks,” Derek replies, letting him take his coat as he steps inside and peers around. He has long since come to terms with his curiosity about what made Will Poindexter into himself, and the Poindexter house is not at all disappointing.

They live a couple neighborhoods away from him, on a street with denser trees and smaller houses, and Derek had noticed walking up that the pocket-size front garden is lovingly cluttered with those things moms really like to buy when they’re on vacation, you know, with the iridescent glass and the copper wire. Likewise, the inside of the house is clean, but close, with a slightly overfilled shoe rack and something on every wall. To his right, he can see into the living room, where a cluttered Christmas tree is already nestled into the corner by the TV, the couch is crowded with plaid blankets, and a bookshelf groans under the weight of novels and an old encyclopedia set and at least two Calvin and Hobbes collections.

“I love your house,” Derek murmurs, and Will gives him that little eye-crinkley smile before he leads him into the kitchen.

 

Derek should not be surprised that PJ has the same flaming-red flow as his older brother. He actually looks almost exactly like Derek remembers Will did back in middle school. Maybe a little skinnier, with a shorter haircut, but the ears, especially, are the same. He does not say one word for the entirety of dinner, but his little head ping-pongs back and forth between all of them like he’s following the conversation avidly. Will’s mom seems to be the only talker of the bunch.

“You say Lou is my mini-me, but look at this,” Derek says, waving between the brothers with his fork.

Mrs. Poindexter (“call me Caroline,” she’d said, and Derek will literally never ever do that) is a pretty, round-faced brunette with perfect teeth, and she laughs. “It’s the hair, isn’t it?” she says. “My Weasley kids. They both look so much like their father, but boys are like that, you know. I bet you’re the spitting image of your dad.”

For a second, there is no noise except for PJ’s chewing. Derek can see the moment Mrs. Poindexter remembers, lips retracting into her mouth as she cringes.

“Mom, I told you--” Will mutters, and she reaches out to pat his hand.

“Oh, god, Derek, I’m so sorry. I have chronic foot-in-mouth disease,” she says, and Derek sees her start to turn red. “I didn’t--”

“It’s okay,” Derek interrupts, covering his mouth so he can swallow a bite of French bread. “I don’t actually mind talking about him. Um, we do look a lot alike. But he had, like, one of those mullet afros when he was my age, so it’s kind of hard to tell.”

Mrs. Poindexter looks at him gratefully.

“You should get one of those,” Will says. “Really complete your whole 90s thing.”

“Just because  _ I  _ know how to dress,” Derek sniffs, stabbing another piece of chicken.

Will does-- that thing, the thing, where he wants to roll his eyes but he’s happy about it.

“You have to admit my early 90s hair was much more exciting than what you wear, hon,” Mrs. Poindexter says. “Although I guess we did wear about the same amount of plaid flannel--”

 

“She likes you,” Will says, situating the salad bowl in the dishwasher with the care of a structural engineer.

Derek grins at him and leans back on the kitchen counter. They’re nice people. Will has a nice family. They both appear to take the fact that Will has a boyfriend in stride, and Derek kind of wonders how long they knew. He isn’t sure what he’d expected from having to meet them, but it was just a calm, friendly family dinner-- kind of like it always is at Derek’s house, but with far fewer interjections from Lou.

“PJ seemed a little on the fence,” he says.

Will stands up and wipes his hands in a dish towel. “Nah, he’s like that with-- just about everybody, besides me and Mom. Sometimes even with me and Mom. We’re hoping he gets a little more open, or whatever, but he might just also be the strong, silent type.”

The Poindexters have a narrow galley kitchen, and Will leans against the counter across from Derek, bracing himself on his hands. Their feet overlap a little in the middle of the linoleum, alternating. “You  _ know, _ I think Lou’s in his class at school,” Derek says.

Will rolls his shoulders back. “I think if you set Lou on PJ, he might die.”

“Nah, she has practice with wallflowers,” Derek says, nudging Will’s left foot with his right. “She’s lived with me her whole life.”

“Well, then, okay. That might be nice.”

They smile at each other, closed lips, then look back down at the floor. Derek lets it go quiet, not totally sure what to say next.

“Hey, I’m sorry about that thing my mom said,” Will starts. “I told her about your dad, but, you know.” He gestures vaguely.

“It’s really, actually chill,” Derek says. “It’s like-- I don’t want him to disappear, you know? I’m still kind of-- I’m proud he’s my dad. I like talking about him sometimes.”

He swallows, opens his mouth, reconsiders, then presses forward. “Do you miss your dad?”

Will’s eyes dart up toward him, surprised. He takes a moment to think, fiddling with one of the drawer handles near him, and the dishwasher hisses quietly. “I don’t--” he says. “I guess I’m not sure. Sometimes I don’t think I even knew him, you know? Because he didn’t actually know me. He knew this specific version of me that I’d put on because I knew he liked that kid better. When we spent time together, it always had to be, like, fixing cars and trash-talking the Packers and talking about girls, and he’d tell me sometimes that he didn’t want PJ to turn out soft from watching daytime TV or whatever. I remember how it felt when I did all that right, and he’d do that dad pat-on-the-shoulder thing, and I guess a part of me misses that. Like, the cowardly little kid part that just lied to him all the time.”

“You weren’t a coward,” Derek says, with a little thrum in his chest that makes his voice wobble. “You were just trying to figure out who you were. If you had to keep secrets from him to make him act like a dad, then that’s on him.”

Will’s head dips. Derek lets his eyes follow the graceful line down from the bottom of Will’s ears past his neck and out to the bump of his shoulders, and it looks like one of those striated rock canyons worn down smooth by a prehistoric river passing through it. 

“It’s weird,” Will says. “I know I should be angry at him, for hurting my mom and PJ, but I’m actually kind of relieved, you know? I’m kind of grateful that--” he swallows, and Derek waits patiently. “I don’t have to try to be the perfect macho Junior he wants. Like, he left, so he doesn’t get a say anymore.”

Derek hums. “There’s no  _ should _ about it. You feel how you feel.”

Will looks back up at him and smiles. “You sound like my old therapist.”

“Nah, I sound like mine,” Derek laughs.

That lost feeling is coming back, like the darkness outside the kitchen window is the entire world shutting off and just letting the two of them be for a while. In a separate dimension where things are uncomplicated, Derek reaches across to grab Will’s hand, traces the lines on his palm and thinks about how one of them is head and another is heart and another is fate, and although he can’t remember which is which, it doesn’t particularly matter.

Here, in this dimension, he just looks.

“Do you still miss your dad?” Will asks.

“All the time,” Derek answers, almost before Will’s done with his sentence. “So much. Not in, like, an injured way, but it’s just part of how I am now. I have curly hair and I’m right-handed and I miss my dad. Like that.”

His chest feels a little tight, and there’s a prickle at the back of his throat. “You know, when I came out to my mom, I asked if she thought Dad would have minded. And she said that he would’ve been so proud of me that he’d cry.”

Will gazes at him steadily. “Your dad sounds really great.”

“God, he was the best,” Derek says. “I just wish-- okay, so everyone says I’m just like him, right? Not just that I look like him, but I have his personality or his values or whatever. And I love knowing that, but it also feels like I’m driving his car without the manual. He had all my hardware, but he was so  _ good _ at it, and what if I never get to be that way and I disappoint people? Sometimes I think that if he was still around, maybe I wouldn’t feel so lost all the time. I would know what kind of good person I could be. As it is, I’m just-- I don’t know. Trying not to fuck it up.”

Derek shrugs and blinks quickly, trying not to feel as exposed as he knows he’s made himself. He doesn’t cry about his dad, not anymore, but he can practically hear the rusty hinges screaming as he heaves open this door inside himself that he walks past every day and chooses not to see.

It is also, however, easier than impossible. Which is something.

Will just nods. “I know what you mean,” he says. “I mean, obviously it’s different, but a lot of times I think, like, I’m going to grow up to be him one way or another. I just want to control  _ how.” _

“I get that,” Derek says, and then: “I didn’t think I’d ever actually talk about this stuff.”

Will smiles, face still tilted downward, and shrugs. “Well, thanks for talking to me.”

In the other, simpler dimension, Derek crosses the kitchen and puts his arms around Will and tucks his face right into the curve of his neck. Will takes the weight and is okay, and Derek does not have to cling to the moment where nobody’s hiding anything, because he’s sure it will happen again.

In this dimension, Derek slowly lowers himself into the ice bath of knowing that he wants this to be real. 

Or, more exactly, that it already is. For him, at least.

“If it matters,” Will says. “I think you’re doing really good.”

Derek gives him a watery smile. “It does.”


	19. being the puck

“What are we, vagrants?” Derek asks as he settles into the grass under the bleachers. “It’s fucking freezing out here.”

“It’s fun!” Ford insists. “Like we’re the boxcar kids!”

“You are literally the only person alive who thinks that that sounds fun,” Derek replies.

Ford shrugs and opens her chicken nuggets. “I mean, if you want your illicit Wendy’s to get confiscated, that’s up to you.”

“I hate you,” Derek says.

He does not want his illicit Wendy’s to get confiscated.

Every once in a while, Ford likes to run away from the theater director. The Hoffeldt High production of _West Side Story_ is next weekend, and _theater people,_ as Ford always says in a very specific tone of voice, can be kind of insufferable under a deadline. And between her general distaste for authority and her own flair for the dramatic, Ford likes to just-- disappear. Sometimes. Not for very long, but long enough to remind Mr. Martorano that none of this is possible without her, and he better stop yelling if he wants everybody’s costumes to fit right.

Thus the off-campus lunch trek. And then the hiding under the bleachers.

“So did you ever text Shruti?” Derek asks, but Ford flails at him wordlessly and then holds a finger to her lips.

Sure enough, two pairs of feet are clambering up the bleachers-- one swathed in spotless Uggs, the other wearing beat-up Nikes. Will’s shoes.

“So what gives, Will?” March says, perching on the seat directly over Derek’s head. “Why are you still with him?”

Derek tries to look unbothered, extracting a fry from inside his jacket, where he’s keeping the container to preserve warmth. Ford bugs her eyes at him.

“I don’t really see how that’s any of your business,” Will says, and Derek makes a move to grab his backpack and bolt.

 _“What are you doing?”_ Ford hisses.

“Going anywhere else?” Derek whispers back. “This doesn’t involve me.”

Ford throws her hands up as high as she can without hitting metal, like Mariam did when Derek used to sleep through his alarm. “Are you fucking kidding me? Of course it does. They’re _literally_ talking about you!”

“I just want things to go back to normal,” March is saying, one leg tucked up under her. “I want _us_ to go back to normal.”

Will scoffs. “Sorry, are you under the impression that we’re going to-- get back together, or something? Are you high?”

Fine, okay, so Derek’s going to stick around to listen. He busies himself separating the foil and wax paper parts of his burger wrapper.

“Of course not!” March says. “I’m not actually an idiot. But, like, great, we get it, you’re gay. Everybody knows and everybody’s fine with it. So you can ditch the weirdo boytoy and this whole mess can be over.”

Ford reaches out to grab Derek’s ankle, and he just raises an eyebrow at her. _Creative,_ he mouths.

“First of all, I don’t think I have to take your orders anymore, and second of all, you want me to dump my boyfriend so I can start being your neutered accessory gay? In what world is that supposed to be appealing to me?”

“That’s not what I meant,” March insists. “You can totally still have a boyfriend! Obvi, I wouldn’t leave you hanging like that. You were just a little disoriented on your way out of the closet, or whatever, and I think you kind of stumbled into that one.”

“Jesus Christ,” he says irritably. “Look, maybe I got with you because you were the first girl to look twice at me, but that doesn’t mean that’s what happened with Derek.”

“Ouch,” Ford whispers, mouth open in delight. Derek tries to mirror it, but he can’t help thinking: it was, though. That’s exactly what happened.

“Oh, shut up,” March laughs, like he hadn’t said anything at all. “I’m not blaming you for the fact that the options here are kind of pathetic, but you can’t tell me that the dandruffy artist from _The Breakfast Club_ is your dream man. There are plenty of gay guys at U Chicago! I’ll have Chad set you up with one of his friends. We’ll find you a man who can, like, form human attachments.”

Okay, Derek will admit that that one stings a little. It stings more the longer Will takes to reply.

“Have you always thought of boyfriends as human purses who you can switch out when you get bored?” Will asks.

It’s silent for another moment. Derek smirks at Ford, and she grins back, doing a little claw motion in the air in front of her.

“Be mad at me, I guess,” March finally says. “But you know I’m right. And I don’t want to go through the rest of high school not talking to you. I mean, you’re coming on the ski trip, right? That’s our _thing,_ Will.”

“Yeah, I am,” Will says. “With Derek.”

“Oh my god!” March exclaims. “Think ahead a little, please. Do you really want to make all of your most important high school memories with some random freak there?”

“You have no clue what you’re talking about,” Will says, very quietly.

Derek’s stomach sinks, and he feels a vague need to throw up his Wendy’s. Ford asks in a whisper if he wants to leave, and he nods, packing his trash into the bag as quietly as possible. Before they can make their escape, he hears March again.

“Don’t you want things to go back to normal?” she says.

They ditch before he hears Will’s reply.

 

Chris, bless him, is trying his hardest to be supportive, but his eyebrows are still at that _ohhhh my god_ height, halfway up his forehead, as he nods down at the stairwell. Derek’s butt is going kind of numb from perching on the windowsill of the landing, but the passing crowds at least take him out of his head a little.

“I just feel like an idiot,” Derek says. “I thought I could be realistic about dating Will. You know, not get emotionally invested in his little adventure outside of the cool people zone.”

“That really sucks,” Chris says. “But you’re not an idiot.”

Derek looks at him out of the corner of his eye, and Chris gives him a little shrug. “C, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the fact that you’re not saying I told you so, but I’m telling you that you were right. I’m ready to come back down to earth. Will’s gonna end it sooner or later so he can go back to his perfect little life. He’ll get a college athlete boyfriend, or something, and I just have to accept that this whole thing was a fluke.”

Chris gently knocks his shoulder into Derek’s. “Yeah, the fluke of Will Poindexter actually hanging out with a cool person for once.”

He really missed Chris.

“Thanks, man,” Derek says with a sigh. “I just wish it wasn’t so predictable. I’m just the software update of every dumb girl that ever fell for Will Poindexter.”

“Yeah, well, _fuck_ Will Poindexter,” Chris says, passionately.

Which is, of course, when Derek hears “excuse me?” from somewhere to his left, and they both turn to see Will, mouth tight, leaning against the banister.

Derek doesn’t even have to look to know that Chris has already gone into goalie mode. The transformation is always a little scary: his eyebrows lower down over his eyes like a helmet, and every muscle in his body goes pliable. Ready to pounce. His normally-pleasant expression freezes over into absolute focus: locate, stop, and repel the puck with as much force as possible.

Will being the puck, in this particular situation.

“Can I fight him?” Chris whispers.

Derek pushes him up and away, toward the stairs to the second floor. “Please, please do not.”

“But--” Chris starts, and Derek holds up a hand.

“I’ll talk to you later.”

Derek lets himself get a little angry, feels it rise right to the top of his stomach, tapping on his diaphragm. Then he seals everything else in. He turns to Will with his backpack thrown over one shoulder.

 

“So you’re just publicly talking shit about me with Chow, now?” Will says, pulling Derek into a dead-end hallway with fewer eavesdroppers.

“Oh, like anybody’s paying attention to what I’m doing,” Derek spits.

“They are!” Will says. “And now they think you hate me, which is helpful.”

Derek laughs. “Yeah, as if you and March weren’t just on the bleachers talking about how you’re gonna get matching college boyfriends!”

Will looks taken aback, and Derek nods, as if to say: yeah, I know things. When he turns to leave, though, Will grabs his elbow. “Look, you don’t-- it wasn’t-- I can explain all of that to you if you want. But if people overhear that shit, they’re gonna think this is going south, and then where are we?”

“Well, let them think that!” Derek says, twisting his arm from Will’s grasp. And he swears that he’s about to leave, except the stupid idiot part of his brain, the one that agreed to fake date Will Poindexter and then forgot about the fake part, looks at Will’s round eyes and how tired and confused he looks, and he caves.

“Well, we have to break up eventually, right?” Derek says. “Chris isn’t going to tell Mariam. You’re out to everybody. March isn’t seeking revenge. This relationship served its purpose, man.”

The hallway is only half-lit, but as he talks, Derek could swear he sees Will’s face getting harder. Maybe that’ll make it easier. “This went on way longer than it was supposed to,” Derek continues. “I just think maybe it’s time to pull the plug.”

“Are you trying to dump me right now?” Will says incredulously, stepping back like Derek shoved him.

“Kind of!” _Now p_ _lease, please just let me do it._

Will sputters almost exactly the way that Derek’s car does on cold mornings. “Wh-- I-- the ski trip is like, ten days away! That was one of the rules!”

“Yeah, if we were still doing this by then,” Derek says, struggling to understand this place that his life has arrived at, where he has to beg Will Poindexter to break things off. “But we really don’t need to be! You can hang out with your actual friends the whole time, _you’re welcome._ We’re chill.”

“Oh, my god, Nurse,” Will says, throwing his arms out to the sides. “Were you going to tell me you just, like, decided to hate me this morning?”

“That’s not why I’m doing this!” Derek says, loud as he can get without yelling, and Will goes quiet, but he doesn’t get that look. That Derek-is-throwing-a-fit look. He just looks tired.

“Then why are you doing it?”

Of _fucking_ course.

Sorry, Mariam, he thinks. But I think even you would agree that, if the truthful option is looking in your fake boyfriend’s stupid baby-deer eyes and telling him that ending the relationship is going to break you into pieces, you lie.

And it takes Derek a second, because he hasn’t had to in a while, but he manages to sink back into School Derek. He relaxes his shoulders, looks disinterestedly at the wall behind Will’s right ear, and sighs like he’s doing Will a favor.

“Fine,” Derek says. “I’ll go if Ford goes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when u finally get to write nursey and dex in their natural state**! see u monday
> 
>  
> 
> **arguing


	20. certified Weak Sauce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i have been garbage at replying to comments but i need u all to know: i love you with every molecule in my body

The rides to school and back are getting a little awkward, but not once does Will even begin to suggest that they stop, which Derek finds endearing in a way that he hates. Lou doesn’t seem to notice. She just kisses her hand, taps Will on the cheek, and bounces out of the backseat like a cartoon panda bear. “Bye, Will Poindexter!” she calls from halfway down the walk.

Will gives her a little wave, then turns to Derek. “I really am sorry about earlier,” he says. “March is a lot right now, and--”

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” Derek says. He has one foot safely on the snow-crusted street, and he tells himself not to, but he still turns back to give Will a reassuring smile. “For real. You don’t owe me an explanation for anything.”

Will is just kind of watching, leaned forward with his long arms draped over the steering wheel, as Derek turns away. He is either doing an excellent job keeping his feelings about the situation under wraps, or Derek just doesn’t know how to recognize said feelings. “Get pumped for next weekend!” he calls, and Derek just gives him the middle finger without looking.

It is a testament to the universality of Denice Ford that there is nothing weird about walking into his own house to see her curled up on the couch with his mom, chit-chatting like they’re in book club together. His mom is holding an Oberon. Ford is drinking what looks like chocolate milk out of a stemmed wine glass. “Hi, honey,” they call in unison, and Derek sighs.

“Were you just talking about me?” he asks.

“Of course not,” his mom says, at the same moment that Ford laughs.

“Please,” she says. “We have way more important topics to cover than you, drama queen.”

“Like the rising popularity of labiaplasty,” his mom says. “Denice has a lot of opinions.”

Derek grimaces and hides himself in the fridge, takes his sweet time finding one of the good flavors of LaCroix in a cold enough can. When he reemerges, his mom gets up from the couch to disappear into her office. She cites a buildup of patient charts, but Derek feels that somehow, Ford must be involved.

“So your boyfriend is actively campaigning to make me go on the ski trip,” Ford says. She turns to him, crosses her legs, and props an elbow on the back of the coach with Oprah-esque gravitas.

Derek pops the top of his drink and looks anywhere but Ford’s eyes. “Hmm, that’s fun. Or we could go back to talking about labiaplasties.”

She just smiles at him innocently and brushes some nonexistent lint off his shoulder. “You can tell me now or you can tell me in ninety seconds after I crush your will. Up to you.”

“Fine,” Derek says. “I told Will that I’d only go on the ski trip if you did.”

“Knowing--” she holds up a finger to take a long pointed sip of her chocolate milk-- “that _West Side Story_ opens next Thursday, two days before the trip.”

“Yes, knowing that,” Derek admits.

“Because you don’t want to go,” she says.

“Because I don’t want to go.”

“Why?” Ford bursts. Derek sees the liquid in her glass swirl dangerously close to the edge, and he watches that instead of her. “You’re gonna miss out on more than twenty-four hours of prime unsupervised boyfriend time, which most teenagers in your position would kill for. Not to mention you’d be leaving him to the mercies of my cousin, who you know _perfectly_ well is dying to break you two up and turn him into her shivering little purse dog. You have to go!”

Derek huddles back into the couch, pulling his knees up like a security blanket. “If it’s my job to keep Will from her clutches or whatever, then I’m sick of it,” he says, giving Ford his subtlest puppy dog eyes. “Besides, I don’t even know if he wants me there. And, like, what am I going to do the whole weekend, then? Be the shoulder angel for some semi-reformed fuckboy going through a crisis? No. Absolutely not.”

He’s surprised when Ford smacks him on the shoulder. He really shouldn’t be.

“Shut the fuck up, Derek Malik Nurse,” she declares, and Derek thinks he hears a muffled _language!_ from his mom’s office. “Bull _shit_ he doesn’t want you there. He texted me eighteen times in a row today. He offered to make my sewing machine into a time machine. He wants you there.”

He feels guilty. That’s all that is. Will Poindexter is a decent dude with fantastic manners, and he wants to make Derek feel better about how weird everything has been. Plus, he plays a team sport and got asked to prom as a freshman, so he thinks school-friend-based group recreation is everyone’s idea of a good time.

“Besides,” Ford continues. “That means March is going to win. And she wants to win this _so badly._ Derek, you cannot let that happen.”

“Well, maybe I’m also sick of designing my love life around pissing her off!” he says, with the scratchy desperation of a trapped cat.

Ford goes all soft around the edges, which makes Derek feel like the world’s biggest asshole. She actually grabs his hand with both of hers and squeezes, looking somewhat like a deeply sincere fortuneteller. “You know it’s not just that,” she says. “Think about what the past couple of months have been like.”

Derek closes his eyes and very deliberately does not do that. But he’s been kind of wound up lately, and Ford is giving him a mini hand massage, and if tears start to pool right at the center of his eyes, wobbling and almost cold, it doesn’t mean anything.

“You’ve been happier, D,” she says softly. “You took off the invisibility cloak.”

“It’s true,” Derek hears his mom say, and his eyes snap open to see her leaning against the archway behind the couch. “I don’t want to interrupt, but sweetheart, I haven’t seen you open up this much in a long time. You talk about new friends, you go to new places. You’re always smiling after he drops you off in that blue behemoth. It’s just really lovely to see.”

He blinks at her for a second, feels his bottom lip threaten to tremble. She raises her hands in a little gesture of surrender and disappears back into her office, and Ford clicks her tongue. “Okay, that was cute,” she says, and Derek just nods.

After a moment of silence, during which Ford stares at the other end of the sectional like she could burn a hole in it if she tried, she finally tosses her hair back from her face and tightens her scarf. It’s sorbet-orange today.

“We’re going on that trip,” she says.

“But _West Side Story,”_ Derek replies weakly.

She waves him off.

“We’re going.”

 

So that’s it, pretty much. Ford insists that she can train the assistant costume director to take over for the Saturday and Sunday shows, and the directors accept this, having long since learned that the things Ford decides will happen cannot be resisted or prevented. “I’m teaching you a lesson about perseverance,” she tells Derek when he protests. “If you want to break up with Will, do it. But if you’re disengaging because you got it in your head that he wants to break up with you, that’s just weak sauce.”

She is right. He is weak sauce. But Derek does what he does best and goes liquid.

He can always fake food poisoning and lock himself in the bathroom.

 

The bus to Alpine Valley boards at 6am in the school parking lot. It’s still basically nighttime. Derek’s mom, of course, is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, which is horrifying. Her hybrid purrs as they pull up alongside the line of sleepy-eyed teenagers, who lean heavily on each other and their roller suitcases. It’s throat-punch cold this time of day, and everyone is wrapped up in their ski gear like little Michelin men.

“So, Derek,” his mom says. It’s in her Dr. Nurse voice, so Derek knows he’s screwed.

“So, Mom,” he prompts. He has one hand on the car door handle, but as certified Weak Sauce, he knows he has to let her say her piece.

“I’m aware that people call this trip the Slutty Slopes,” she begins, hands placed very precisely on ten and two on the steering wheel.

 _Oh my god,_ Derek thinks.

“Which I dislike for a number of reasons,” she continues. “As a feminist and a parent. But you know that above all, I want you to--”

“Be safe, I know,” Derek says, face going as red as the duffel bag on his lap.

“And I hope you remember the talks we’ve had about sex before--”

People pass through the beam of his mom’s headlights with their overnight backs. Laughing, chatting, checking their phones, completely unaware that Derek’s organs are all boiling and he is descending through the Kia’s shotgun seat into hell. “I promise I remember,” he grits out.

“But I want to reiterate-- Derek, look at me-- I want to reiterate that there is nothing wrong with wanting to have sex. However, you shouldn’t do anything that you, personally and of your own free will, do not want to do. And especially nothing that you don’t know how to do safely.” She pins him down with her mom-gaze, glasses flipped up on top of her head. Then she silently passes him a brown paper bag.

“Mom,” Derek says, gingerly feeling its edges. “I don’t want to look, because we are surrounded by people I have to see every day, but I sense that this is a box of condoms.”

“And lube,” she says helpfully.

Derek is having an allergic reaction. Or he is dying.

“Don’t you think that’s a little-- I don’t know, advanced?” he chokes out.

And his mom-- cackles. Totally loses her shit. “Honey, it’s not an AP class,” she wheezes, and Derek throws up his hands.

“Oh my god. I hate this. Thanks for the ride, bye forever.”

He clumsily scoops up his bag and the condoms and half-falls out of the car, trying not to faceplant on the icy pavement. He’s barely in line for the bus when his phone vibrates.

 

_**Momma** _

_Ski safe!! Love you!!_

_**Derek** _

_love u too_

_**Momma** _

_Don’t feel bad if you stay on the bunny hill. Wouldn’t want you to get hurt doing anything too…….advanced >:D_

_**Derek** _

_:/_

_i’m moving to wisconsin_


	21. not a good time to be full of angst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see you friday. >:))

The bus is only marginally warmer than the morning air, but at least it promises the possibility of sitting down, so the line leading onto it moves with the energy of a slow-motion buffalo stampede. Derek is mostly focused on staying upright on the snowmelt-coated stairs, and so he only vaguely registers someone calling his name.

Because he should know better, at this point, than to believe the cruel dominatrix who carries out the whims of the universe would let him do one goddamn thing without it being kind of emotionally fraught.

“Derek!” Will says again, and Derek finally looks up.

His pretend-boyfriend-actual-crush stands, jock stance at full width, in the fourth row back. His jacket is on one seat. His backpack is on the other. “Sit with me,” he says, and there is a cowlick sticking directly up from the back of his head, and Derek’s first instinct is to do whatever he wants forever.

This is deeply problematic for his plan to avoid Will, and therefore all of his problems, all weekend.

“Uh, I’m sorry, but I--” Derek casts his eyes around the bus desperately. “I promised Ford I’d sit with her,” he says, flinging a hand out toward where she’s already so deeply asleep that she’s almost drooling. Will squints at her, then looks back at Derek.

“She was up till four in the morning figuring out musical stuff,” Will says. “She posted, like, a whole album about it on her finsta. I don’t think she’ll mind.”

The line behind Derek is getting impatient, he can feel it, and so he pretends to be carried forward by the velocity of the sleepy cheerleaders clamoring at his back. “Well, I can’t let anyone else be exposed to sleep-deprived Ford, right? So, I’m just, I’ll see you there,” he says, waving awkwardly and then scurrying forward to throw himself down next to Ford.

He feels guilty. It’s not fun. At least, he does, for the four seconds or so after Derek leaves, when Will follows him with his eyes, frowning faintly. Then March, still pristine at this ungodly hour in a forest-green ski coat and matching bobble hat, swoops possessively into the other seat. “Saving this for anybody?” she chirps. She’s already sitting down.

“Um, I guess not,” Will says, and he drops from Derek’s line of sight.

“I hate this,” Derek says to Ford, and she paws vaguely in the direction of Derek’s mouth as if to shush him without opening her eyes.

“Not a good time to be full of angst,” she mumbles, tugging her hood up and over her head and pulling the strings so that only her nose and mouth are visible. “Tired.”

“It’s not even six a.m. and already my mom has tried to have the anal sex talk with me and it’s all your fault,” Derek says. “I’ll be full of angst if I want.”

Ford flops over onto his shoulder and touches his whole face with her left hand. “Exactly, son. It’s six a.m. I will kill you if you use your surprisingly moisturized mouth to make any more of the words.” She pinches his lips shut for emphasis.

“Good night, gremlin,” Derek whispers fondly as she burrows a little deeper into his shoulder.

She just grunts.

Then the bus wheezes and shudders into motion, and Derek stares out of the window as they drive north: the gray, grainy slush of the highway turning into pristine Wisconsin white. The charcoal-colored sky stretching its arms out gloriously in a late, but still brilliant, winter sunrise.

 

Alpine Valley is covered with that new, squeaky snow, and Derek stamps it vigorously off his boots as he enters. Everyone is pink-cheeked now, much more alive at nine than at six, and the lodge rustles with a kind of nervous optimism. “Ahh, the smell of V-cards in the morning,” Ford says, stopping to take a theatrical whiff of the air. She miraculously recovered her tornado-energy after her nap.

“You’re a virgin,” he points out.

“That’s a heteropatriarchal social construct and I don’t believe in it,” she sniffs, and she hip-checks him so hard he almost falls over.

Derek is truly baffled by the mechanics of the ski trip. He thinks that there are meant to be people in charge, teachers maybe, or parents at the very least, but if they even got on the bus in the first place, they’re nowhere to be found now. Instead, AdamandJustin are the de facto chaperones, and they’re standing on the fireplace holding a fishbowl.

“Nursey!” Adam booms. “Good to see your exquisite face, my man.”

Justin holds out the bowl to Ford, who looks nonplussed. “What is this?” she says, and he shakes the little cardboard folders inside it temptingly.

“It’s all the room keys!” he says. “Like, a bowl full of keys. You know.”

Ford’s right eyebrow lifts delicately.

“It’s fucking hilarious,” Adam declares, throwing an arm over Justin’s shoulders. “Ransypoo is a comic genius. Now pick your room and hit the slopes, 1957 Ford Thunderbird!”

“Or get to the back of the line, 1994 Ford Explorer!” Justin adds.

As she reaches a hand into the bowl, grimacing, Adam winks at Derek. “And don’t you worry, Sexy Dexy already has yours.”

Derek smiles awkwardly and drags Ford away by her elbow. “You have to let me sleep in your room,” he mutters through his teeth.

“If you really want to, of course,” she says. “But you have all day on a beautiful outdoor playground to do damage control on-- ugh, that.”

She nods toward the back corner of the lodge’s great room, where March is flipping through what looks like an entire fraternity worth of Chad’s gay friends. She is ostensibly talking to her team, but pitching it loud enough to reach Will on the next couch over. He looks up at Derek, then glances away, but does not pay any attention to her.

“Okay, and then this is John,” March says, holding out a photo of a blandly handsome brown-haired guy with 40s taped to his hands. “He has, like, crazy abs. And this is Sebastian, and he speaks fucking  _ French. _ You know, if Will is still on his artsy kick.”

She looks over just far enough to check that Derek is watching, then flips her platinum hair as she addresses Will directly. “But we can talk about it on the ski lift, right, babe? First black diamond run of the year! Can’t break tradition.”

“Yeah, I’m not going anywhere near that,” Derek says to Ford. “I’m on indoor mode.”

“Oh, you bitch,” Ford says. “You’re not even going to go skiing?”

“I can barely stay upright on my feet, and I have, like, fifteen years of practice with those,” Derek replies with a shrug. “Sorry.”

“Ellie!” Ford calls, and Derek sees a five-foot cylinder of winter gear begin to move towards them. “Ellie, will you please tell Derek that skiing isn’t that scary?”

A mittened hand reaches up to peel off the figure’s outermost scarf. Underneath it, Larissa Duan’s face is a little pink and a lot unimpressed. “Babe, I  _ just _ got over bronchitis. I’m here for the rager, not the mountain air.”

“What the hell, wet blanket club? It’s the  _ ski _ trip,” Ford pleads, placing a hand on each of their shoulders. “What else are you gonna do all day?”

“I actually need a four-hour nap, minimum,” Ellie says.

“I brought books,” Derek adds, unzipping his duffel bag to reveal a few old standbys and a few new loans from Annie’s. The new books both have the same model on the cover, some freckled guy with broad shoulders. One is about a blacksmith. The other is about a mechanic. There is a lot of strategically placed soot and grease.

Ellie peeks in, interested. “Ooh, are those dirty?”

“Kinda,” Derek says. “I also have pore strips.”

“Yeah, that’s my kind of party,” Ellie says, moving to link her elbow with Derek’s.

Ford throws her hands up. “Fine, fine. Hey, Caitlin!” she calls, and jogs away to join the ski rental line.

 

It’s really, genuinely, a good day. They throw the curtains wide open to the mirror-bright daylight, and Ellie makes good on her plans for a multi-hour nap. Derek reads his old favorite book instead of either of the new ones, the one where the guy and the girl confess their love in some field of wildflowers in medieval Scotland, wearing completely period-inaccurate outfits. They get clay face masks in their hair and on the hotel pillows. They sneak out to the dining hall when it’s empty to get mediocre chicken tenders and incredible hot chocolate.  _ The Dark Knight Rises _ is on FX in the middle of the afternoon, and still-hoarse Ellie busts out a Bane impression that gives Derek a side cramp from laughing. He genuinely forgets, for several hours on end, that he is trying not to pine.

But after dinner, when it’s well and truly dark outside, Ellie lies down to recharge for her night of drunken shenanigans, and the Hallmark channel has long since switched over to reruns of Golden Girls, he remembers.

He’s sitting there, wishing he’d remembered to get his Moleskine back from Will so he could write, when his phone pings:  _ ransom.money has shared a photo of wj_dex. _ Derek always gets notifications about Will-- something to do with the number of times he’s tagged Derek in photos, or how Derek checks his profile at least once a day. To make sure Mariam hasn’t followed him, or anything. Derek reminds himself that looking at the picture will not make him feel better. He opens it anyway.

**_ransom.money:_ ** _ we rly are dem boys huh _

It’s dumb and funny and fond. Justin and Adam flank Will on the ski lift, crowding him in with cheesy smiles, and Will wrinkles his windburned nose at the camera. His tiger-lily hair sticks out in points from under his hat. There is no reason to get kind of sad looking at it, but Derek does anyway, and then he clicks through to Will’s profile like the self-destructive sap he is. There are so many pictures of the two of them, or of just Derek, drinking coffee at Annie’s and sitting on Adam’s lap at lunch and learning, without success, to drive stick. Back a few months, there’s that picture from the party, sort of overexposed and purple in the background. Both of them looking actually, honestly happy.

He wonders if Will is going to delete them all after they break up.

He didn’t delete the ones with March.

“Stalking your boy?” Ellie croaks from her bed.

Derek turns to see her looking at him, eyes all shiny with lamplight. Her comforter is pulled up all the way to her chin. She looks comically small inside it.

“You obviously don’t have to talk about it, but I hope you two are okay,” she says. “You seemed so solid for a while, and then recently it’s been kind of different.”

Derek thinks about how readily she’d accepted the batshittery of the letters, how she hadn’t told a soul about them. She blinks at him.

“Larissa Duan,” he says. “Can you keep a secret?”


	22. a mess of possibilities

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I owe brooks (feministfanboi on tumblr) my LIFE

“You are truly on another level, Derek Nurse,” Ellie says as she polishes off her pre-pregame Red Bull. “Leave it to two gays to come up with the world’s most roundabout possible path to holding hands.”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” he protests gently.

“Oh, I really admire your commitment,” Ellie says. “I mean, you’re both ridiculous, but I cannot fault the follow-through.”

“And you get that you can’t tell anyone, ever, at all?” he asks.

“Of course not, dude. I’m not a serial killer.”

They sit in silence for a moment. Ellie tosses her can in a flawless arc toward the wastebasket.

“So what now?” she asks.

Derek huffs out a breath. “The same thing I always do, I guess. Pine a little and let it play itself out. It worked with every other person I ever had a hopeless crush on.” He laughs. “Maybe I’ll write him another letter.”

“Ah yes,” she replies sagely. “That bottling-up strategy that ended up with your feelings exploding all over the place at once. Sounds great.”

“It was one freak Goodwill accident!” Derek protests.

“Yeah, yeah,” Ellie says. “You’re an idiot.”

“You’re telling me,” Derek says.

“No, don’t be self-deprecating about this. I mean you’re oblivious,” she corrects. “I’ve seen Will Poindexter in an actual fake relationship. With March, remember? And you’re different.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a boy,” Derek says. “So.”

He picks at the comforter on his bed. There aren’t any loose threads, but he can invent one. Ellie drags her hands down her face in dramatized annoyance. “Let me revisit some of the details, here. _Will_ wanted to do the fake-dating thing. _Will_ tried to fight the no-kissing rule. _Will_ is the one insisting you can’t break up yet. Draw your own conclusions, bud.”

“None of that is because he actually likes me,” Derek insists.

Ellie looks at him in disbelief.

Derek shrugs.

She presses her hands together as if in prayer, touches the tips of her fingers underneath her chin, and closes her eyes. “Nurse,” she says seriously. “This level of interference from me is a one-time thing. Treasure it. But _come on._ Did you know he has a separate text tone for you? Because he does. If his phone goes off and it’s not you, he doesn’t even bother to look. If it’s you, he’ll stop midsentence to see what you want. I’ve never seen him so focused on anybody. He’s always looking at you when you’re not paying attention, you know? And he wants more from you than you’re willing to give, but he’s just. Patient.”

Derek sits in stunned silence, stomach coming to life with carbonated hope and anxiety and want. He had never once imagined their relationship existing when Derek wasn’t around. He had never once imagined that it took up any more space in Will’s life than it had to. “Oh,” Derek says simply, just a little release of the pressure building in his chest and telling him to _get up_ . To _do something_.

“Yeah, _oh,”_ Ellie says, and she flips her legs off the bed. “Now I have some drunken shenanigans to get into, and you might want to go out back and get your man. Because I’m done babysitting this whole situation, so. Figure it out.”

Derek puts his coat on over his pajamas and goes.

Of course he goes.

 

The outdoor pool is tucked into the back-curve of the lodge, patio dropping off at the back onto a gentle snowy hill criss-crossed with boot prints. Opposite him, the ski slope is lit up with floodlights that cast everything in a cool, space-age white. Derek’s nose immediately itches with cold. It takes him a moment to be sure that he’s not the only person out there.

The pool itself, of course, is closed for the season, but the hot tub is still lit up, and a wet ginger head of hair slumps deeply in one of the seats. Nose, eyes, and the tips of his ears above water, like a hippo. Derek laughs quietly, but Will doesn’t acknowledge him.

“Hey, Poindexter,” he says softly.

Will’s gaze finally flicks up, but he stays silent.

Derek remembers what Ellie said. About the looking, and the wanting. He thinks he can feel it.

He takes a few steps closer, legs covered in goosebumps. “You mad at me?” he asks.

Will rolls his eyes and sits up just far enough out of the water to speak. “I’m not mad,” he says.

“But you don’t want to talk to me,” Derek replies.

“As if, man,” Will huffs. “I wanted to talk to you all day. I wanted to talk to you on the bus. You’re the one who blew me off.”

“I was trying to help!” Derek insists. “I thought-- you wanted things to go back to normal. Move past this weird blip in your life where everyone thinks you’re into me. I didn’t want you to be stuck hanging out with me all weekend when you could be hanging out with your friends.”

“Stuck hanging out with--” Will starts, then sinks underwater, a few bubbles rising to the top as he lets out a muffled scream. Derek comes closer, kneels at the edge of the tub in concern, but Will resurfaces after a moment. He does not look any calmer than before.

“Derek, I downloaded like three seasons of _Saved by the Bell_ for the bus ride because I know you love that show. I went and got those samosas, the ones your sister is always eating for breakfast, because they’re delicious but also because I thought it would be a cute inside joke. I wanted to hang out with _you._ I do pretty much all the time.”

The wheels of Derek’s brain spin furiously, and the butterflies in his stomach start hanging up a disco ball and mixing drinks. “You went all the way to Kukulu Market?” is all he can think to say. “That’s in, like, Evanston.”

“Chyeah,” Will says. “Man, why do you think I begged you to come on this trip in the first place?”

“Because you felt guilty?” Derek can hear, as he says it, how stupid it sounds.

Will flicks a handful of pool water at him, and he smiles begrudgingly as Derek shakes the droplets out of his hair. The floodlights on the ski hill start to click off as it closes for the night, from the top of the lift downward. It sounds like a city powering down. Like universe-size heartbeats. Derek waits-- in for three, out for five-- and his eyes adjust to the return of the moonlight, which is thin and bright and lies over the contours of everything like gold leaf. Lit from below, Will looks mythical, pale and elven, eyes hollow.

“I’m sorry,” Derek says sincerely. “I didn’t know.”

Will’s face is laid all the way open, not like a book, but like window shutters. Like he would let Derek reach in if he wanted.

“Do you know now?” Will asks, and Derek just nods.

He stands, then, sheds his coat and his sweatshirt. He tries to go quickly, as if that’s going to make him less vulnerable, and he steps into the water quickly too. He’s freezing, but he doesn’t slip underwater yet.

“Nice boxers,” Will teases.

Derek rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. “Well, I didn’t think I’d be going swimming in December, but anything for you, I guess.”

He doesn’t sound even a little annoyed.

He wades over to stand over Will, whose eyes dart across Derek’s chest, just for a half-second. He tries not to cross his arms protectively over his middle, but he can’t really help it. Will sits perfectly still apart from the droplets falling from the edges of his hair. He looks uncertain, arms stiff by his sides, and Derek is willing to bet that underwater, he’s fiddling with the edge of his swim trunks the way he always does with his sweatshirt sleeves. Someone is playing music loudly in one of the rooms overlooking the pool deck, but Derek can just barely hear the bass line under the hissing of hot water meeting very cold air. He wants to-- to reach down, but doesn’t know how.

The moment holds taut, motionless, like a slingshot stretching backwards. except for eyes tracking across faces and Derek’s teeth starting to chatter.

“You shy all of a sudden, Mr. Physical?” Derek says, and it sounds exactly and only like fondness. Like hope.

Will looks away, lips crinkling, and his dimples appear like magic. “It’s just, um, it’s different,” he says, barely audible.

Now that he’s paying attention, Derek finds that it’s absolute bullshit that there are times Will isn’t looking at him, and so he taps Will’s shoulder to get his attention. “Hey,” he whispers.

When Will looks up again, Derek ducks impatiently down to kiss him.

It’s short. Just long enough for Derek to note details, to file away, in the new part of his brain called what-it’s-actually-like, that Will tastes like spearmint, and that he reaches up with feather-light fingers to trace the veins in Derek’s wrist. Derek squeezes his eyes shut and memorizes it.

When he pulls away, he leaves his hand on Will’s shoulder and presses his lips together while he waits for the universe to implode or the studio audience to start laughing. Instead, Will simply says: “You’re shaking.”

“Yeah, well, it’s fucking freezing,” Derek replies, which is mostly what he means.

Steam rises around Will’s face, and the lost look disappears as he says, “So come back down here, then.”

He reaches up for Derek’s waist, and Derek settles easily, knees bracketing Will’s hips. A coat of sparks rises across his chest and up over his shoulders as the heat brings all his nerve endings back to life. Between that and way they both glow under the skin of the water, Derek feels as if they’ve finally entered that other dimension: the one where things between them are simple, where Derek is self-assured and can move from wanting to doing without any panic. His favorite fantasy world.

But then he thinks—what if they're really there? Isn’t Will looking up at him like he’s begging Derek to kiss him again?

So he does.

It feels like a lit sparkler dropping down his throat. Derek from the other dimension slides into the driver’s seat and flexes his fingers over the controls, and it’s not perfect—their teeth clack together, Derek can’t decide where he most urgently needs to put his hands—but Will pulls him back down to earth, and it’s _good._ Their kisses stretch out longer, take the shape of waves breaking apart and reforming again. Will cups Derek’s jaw, first, tilts his head to get closer, and draws his thumb in unhurried circles across the skin below Derek’s ear. Derek presses him back against the seat and loops his arms around Will’s neck. When he winds a hand up through Will’s hair to play with that dumb cowlick, exactly like he’d wanted to since this morning or maybe forever, Will’s hands stutter on Derek’s back. He is the same as always: steady, honest, pulling Derek closer. But now he’s also a mess of possibilities.

It’s like this: as a kid, Derek was always too afraid to jump off the swings. He liked the way he hung in the air for a half-second if he kicked high enough, how it made his heart float free in his chest, but he was terrified of letting go of the chains. He never could make himself jump. Still, he’d feel that swell of reckless energy that made him want to.

He feels that way again now—so happy he wants to do something stupid. It bursts up through his chest in the form of a smile he can’t resist, wide like it could split him in half.

He pulls back from the kiss and presses his thumbs to the corners of Will’s jaw as if to memorize him: the freckles, even in the winter; the hair sticking up at funny angles over his ears; the eyelashes set with tiny diamonds of water.

Grinning back at Derek, he looks like like that breathless second of hangtime. The temptation to jump.

“What?” he whispers.

And what Derek says is “nothing,” but what he thinks is: _in my head, I have lived a million different versions of this moment in a thousand different places with a hundred different people, and this?_

_This is by far my favorite one._

Then he leans back in and leaps.


	23. old self

Derek jolts awake like he overslept on the first day of school. He blinks once, remembers, and then sits up so fast he gets vertigo, desperate to make sure it really happened. His boots and coat are in a pile on the floor where he remembers leaving them. He tries to stretch one of his curls down to see if it smells like pool water, but his hair isn’t long enough.

“Ellie,” he says.

 _“Mmgrfmng,”_ she replies from deep inside her comforter. She and Ford had both stumbled back to the room in the early hours and collapsed into bed, but Ford is far too deep a sleeper to wake up right now.

“Ellie, did I make out with Will in the hot tub last night?” he insists.

“I don’t know, did you?” she mumbles. “Now shut the fuck up.”

Derek is pretty sure that he did, but it still seems so far out of the realm of possibility that he has to check. Plus, he wouldn’t put it past his brain to come up with an incredibly detailed, equally romantic and horny plot line like that in his sleep. Not that they actually did anything past, like, first base. Which is probably a solid sign that it wasn’t a dream.

They’d kissed until their fingers were pruny and Derek was shivering again. Will had chivalrously made the mad dash across the freezing patio to get them both towels, and then he’d walked Derek up to his room (“Just to say good night, not to like--” “Yeah, Will, don’t worry, I know you respect my virtue”). When they reached Derek’s doorway, he let go of Will’s hand to fumble for his key card, and Will gave it about two seconds before he reeled Derek back in by the lapels of his coat for one last kiss. It was gentle, but sent lightning down his spine and into his feet, and Derek could still feel Will’s waist under his hands as he fell soundly asleep.

When he checks his phone, there are several Snapchats each from Ford, Ellie, and AdamandJustin, videos of a loud but surprisingly well-behaved party in someone’s room, and then a picture from Will, which he checks last. It’s from 3:26 a.m., several hours after Derek went to bed. Will’s face is half-buried in a pillow, but the half he can see is smiling gently. _You better sit next to me on the bus tomorrow,_ the text says. _Also you really fucked my hair up._

Derek’s stomach swoops happily.

So that answers that.

 

Ellie and Ford drag their feet, but eventually everyone is up and dressed and in line for the bus. Farmer is in front of them, looking chipper, and she giggles at the middle finger Ford throws up at her. “I might have targeted her in Never Have I Ever,” she says. “But to be fair, you weren’t the only person there who had kissed the sibling of someone on the soccer team.”

“Yeah, Connor was _not_ happy about Tango and his sister,” Ellie says.

Connor, a few spots ahead of them in line, turns to flip Farmer off too.

As soon as Derek gets to the top stair of the bus, everyone already seated starts clapping and whooping. Neither Farmer in front of him nor Ellie behind him get the same reception, and he feels exposed and paranoid as he power-walks to the back where Will is seated. “G’morning,” Will says pleasantly, moving over so that Derek can slide in.

“Did you tell people about last night?” he asks, sotto voce.

“What?” Will says. “Why would you think that?”

Derek does an awkward little jazz hands. “You know, the-- the woo-ing,” he says.

“Oh,” Will says, shaking his head. “No, I didn’t, people just kind of do that with couples on the ski trip.” He gestures toward the front of the bus, where Randall Robinson and his girlfriend receive the same treatment. They wave and bow gracefully. She high-fives several of her friends as they walk to their seats.

“Okay, cool,” Derek says, because it’s not like he’d be all Puritan and ashamed about having sex, but he didn’t actually. And it’s just-- weird. The idea that everyone would know about it.

“And good morning to you too,” he says belatedly. Will grins at him, and Derek darts forward to kiss the left corner of his mouth. Just because he can.

Halfway through the first episode of Saved by the Bell, Derek realizes that Will is dead asleep on his shoulder. He settles back, eyes closed, and smells the hotel shampoo in Will’s hair as he drifts off.

 

The school parking lot is shiny with melting snow. Derek waits off to the side while Will grabs his suitcase from the bottom of the bus; he has a few texts from his mom asking if he needs a ride, and he tells her that Will can drive him home. She sends him a smiley face and a thumbs up in response. Derek gets warm all over again with the delayed knowledge that he has a boyfriend, a real one, the kind that charms your mom and gives takes you home in his pickup. He could even maybe make out with Will in that pickup, which doesn’t sound half-bad, and he loses himself in that train of thought for a minute, before being rudely interrupted by a high-pitched “Hey, Derek!”

“March,” Derek says primly. He meant it when he told Ford that he was done tailoring his love life around annoying March, but he’s not too big to enjoy a smug smile at her expense.

“So glad you came on the ski trip!” she says, toying with a strand of white-gold hair. There are bits of yesterday’s mascara under her lower lashline, and she’s putting on a more genuine fake smile than she usually does with Derek. “It is _so_ nice to see you getting more involved in school stuff.”

“Mhm, thank you,” Derek says, glancing around for a rescue, but Ford and Ellie are already gone, and he can’t even see Will in the throng of people unloading. “It was great.”

“And you know, I’m super excited for us all to get to be friends again,” she continues. “Like, you’d think it would be weird, but last night Will was telling me about how you guys finally-- well, you know.” She winks, and Derek starts. “And it was actually so funny. I mean, a _hot tub?_ Like, he really went right back to his old self. Still a player when he’s on the other team, right?”

“How we what?” Derek asks, feeling his heartbeat intensely in his stomach and forehead and fingers. March continues on, shiny-pretty, hands flashing through the air like she hasn’t noticed anything.

“Plus, it’s good that you’re not the kind of person who’s gonna get all clingy and weird about it, 'cause you never really care about that stuff. Ohmigod, wait, I have to make sure I have your phone number so we can hang later,” she says blithely, rooting around in her bag. “Here, can you hold this? I just have _so_ much shit in here.”

Derek doesn’t think to protest, too distracted trying to talk himself down, so he stands silently as she piles things in his hands. A makeup bag, a water bottle. Obviously, March is just trying to mess with him, like always. She’s making shit up. But the hot tub thing is-- that could be a guess, Derek tells himself.

Then a small Moleskine lands on top of the pile in his arms.

A wave of ice water hits Derek’s veins.

“What’s that?” he asks, praying to whoever is listening that he can borrow School Derek one last time. Just to keep his voice steady.

March looks up from her bag, phone finally in hand. “Oh, my journal?”

No, Derek’s journal. The one that he bought for this semester, the one he would never even think about letting anyone touch except for that one _stupid_ party when he let Will hang onto it. He’d been so distracted all semester that he’d forgotten to ask for it back.

“Will gave it to me,” she says with a grin, and Derek wants to throw up. “He said writing really helped him with his feelings, and I should try it too. I think that’s one of his old ones, though, because there’s some, like, random scribbles in the front of it. Isn’t it adorable?”

“Super cute,” Derek says, reaching over to dump his armful of things back onto March. “You know what, why don’t you just DM me on Instagram if you want to talk. Um, I gotta go.”

Every cell in Derek's body needs to believe that March is just bullshitting to get what she wants. But between the hot tub and the notebook, Derek can picture about a thousand different ways last night ended and in none of them does Will Poindexter give more than a passing thought to what’s going to hurt Derek. He starts toward the nearest bathroom to either cry or vomit-- he’s not sure-- but then he sees Will, who finally found his stupid bag. “Hey D,” he calls, approaching at a jog with eyebrows furrowed. “Are you ready-- wait, are you okay?”

School Derek finally betrays him. His whole body feels like it’s about to fly apart and Derek hugs himself to keep it together, but there’s no saving his face, which he is sure looks exactly how he feels. “Why does March think we had sex?” he blurts, and Will’s face pinches up. “Did you talk to her last night?”

“I mean, I did, but it’s not--” Will starts, but Derek cuts him off.

He can feel himself starting to choke up, so he spits it out quickly. “Is that how this relationship is going to be? You mess around with me just to tell people that you did?”

“It’s not like that,” Will pleads. “I don’t know why she’d tell you that, but I can explain, I swear.”

“If it’s not like that, why did you give March my notebook?” Derek says, voice finally breaking. The blood drains from Will’s face all at once, and Derek laughs bitterly. “I mean, it’s good to know you think I’m an idiot, but I hope you at least took the rules out before you re-gifted my shit, William.”

“The rules,” Will repeats dumbly.

“Yeah, dumbass,” Derek says. “You know, the ones that describe our sad-ass fake-boyfriend arrangement? Truly a baller move, handing physical evidence of the most humiliating thing you’ve ever done over to your evil ex-girlfriend. I mean, no matter how little you care about me, I would’ve thought that your self-preservation instincts would kick in and stop you.”

“Oh my god,” Will says. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I didn’t even know the rules were still in there.”

“Well, maybe you didn’t, or maybe you wanted to bond with March over how pathetic I am,” Derek says, and that thought is ugly enough to stick in his head like a thrown dagger. “I don’t really give a shit.”

“I swear, Derek, it wasn’t that. Just let me explain.” Will sounds suitably distraught, and Derek wonders how much scarier it seems to lose your social status when you actually have one. He doesn’t look at Will's face, though, just picks up his stuff and takes a step backward.

“Well, whatever it was, exactly, congratulations on ruining both of our lives forever.” He looks up to give Will a little salute. “And as my Christmas gift to you, we’re done. This was fun, but I think you’ve jerked me around enough. You got what you wanted; what I wanted obviously isn’t important. You’re free, asshole. Please know that I truly mean it when I say that I hope you get fucked.”

He spins and starts to break into a jog, but not before he sees Will’s face kind of crumple in on itself. Not my job to fix that, Derek thinks.

“Derek!” Will calls.

He just breaks into a run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry lol


	24. did you miss me

Derek makes it home in twenty minutes, slowed down somewhat by the duffel bag. Everything hurts by the time he reaches the front door: his shoulder, the outside of his legs where the bag hit, his feet, and especially his lungs. He just couldn’t make himself stop. It was either run or really stop to think through what had just happened with Will, and he knows he should do the latter, but there is so much salt in the wound that he just decides not to touch it. Out of all the stupid outcomes of this stupid plan, he hadn’t expected to get his own heart broken.

That’s what he gets for thinking he could just decide not to feel things, Derek supposes.

Blessedly, no one is home, or at least it appears that way. Derek drops his bag next to the front door, on top of all the shoes, and ducks into the hallway bathroom to gather himself. He splashes cold water on his face, presses a wet hand towel under his eyes to bring down the redness. This is good, he tries to believe as he looks steadily into the mirror. It sucks, but it’s for the best. People will forget, eventually, and at the very least he’ll be able to detach his life completely from March Austen.

Besides, the rules are folded very small and tucked into the little folder at the back of the Moleskine. There is a non-zero chance that, if Will didn’t show her the rules, she won’t notice they’re there.

Derek blows his nose and checks his waterline again. He can’t honestly tell if he thinks Will would have done it on purpose. The Chris-part of his brain, which is usually not the rational one, says it’s unlikely. But the screaming part won’t let him put the image away.

 _You’ll get over this,_ he says to himself. _You’ll figure this out; you can stop taking up so much space._

It does not sound as important as it used to.

Then he hears that not-quite-a-little-kid voice yell his name, and when he opens the bathroom door, he feels a strawberry-scented cannonball hit his stomach.

“You’re back!” Lou says happily, winding her little arms between his back and the door so she can squeeze him around the middle. “Do you like it?”

“Do I like what, Lulu?” Derek asks, hugging her back and resting his cheek on top of her hair. He could very easily still cry. A number of things in his life are fucked, but the important ones, at least, are still okay.

The first thing he sees when he looks up are the icicle lights twined around the banister of the stairs. Through the living room, their Christmas tree is finally up, scattered with the clumsily-made ornaments from elementary school and the beautiful blown-glass ones that had been a wedding gift to his parents. There are extra pine boughs everywhere, the way his mom likes even though they shed a lot, and that kitschy little ceramic Christmas village is tucked into drifts of cotton snow on the dining room table. It’s warm and smells like clove oranges and Derek squeezes his little sister a little more tightly. “It’s beautiful, habibti. You did a great job.”

“I had help,” she says, and she gestures grandly toward the top of the stairs.

Where Mariam sits. Hair shorter, in a big t-shirt with a blanket draped around her shoulders, she says: “Did you miss me?”

“No,” Derek sniffles, and he opens his arms to invite her into the hug.

 

They sit around the coffee table, licking stamps and addressing envelopes for the family Christmas cards. The photo is a family picture taken last summer on a vacation up in St. Joseph’s. They’re all wearing matching blue-and-white outfits, courtesy of Derek’s grandmother, and sitting close together in the beach grass. He and Mariam both look skinnier; Lou looks shorter. Derek’s posture is awful. He self-consciously sits up straighter as he works.

“They don’t even have As,” Mariam is saying. “They have HDs, and they hate giving them out, which was actually kind of okay because I didn’t feel like a failure if I didn’t get perfect grades.”

“You _didn’t?”_ Lou gasps dramatically. “Who are you?”

“A grown-up,” Mariam says, wiggling her eyebrows ominously.

“So do people ride kangaroos to school?” Derek asks, just to be a little shit.

Mariam thwaps him on the back of the head with a stuffed envelope, and Derek feels warm and secure in his annoying-little-brother role, all the long pauses and unanswered texts of the past semester ignored as if they never happened.

He already dreads the day, in a month or so, that they’ll have to drop Mariam off at the airport again, but he tries not to think about it.

“Yeah, they assign you one when you register for classes,” she says. “Actually, you’d see them out in, like, the boonies, but campus was in the middle of the city. So I still haven’t seen one up close.”

“So what are we doing for dinner?” Lou asks, bored. She’s on a mean growth spurt that has easily doubled her sambusa intake.

“I think maybe we’ll just make something before Mom gets home,” Mariam answers. “I went to get injera this morning-- I borrowed the car, D, I hope that’s okay.”

Derek waves in a vague, it’s-fine way, but Lou decides to add, “He never drives it anyway.”

Mariam clicks her tongue at him, and Derek rolls his eyes. “Did you go back to the bus again?” she chides. “You’re going to have to get used to driving eventually.”

He has never really been great at getting a word in edgewise with his sisters, and today is no exception. Lou dodges away from Derek’s pinching hand as she says, “No, Will drives us. Are you going to invite him over for dinner?”

Derek sees Mariam mouthing _Will?_ at him, and he ducks his head like picking a stamp off the roll takes a lot of focus. “No, I’m definitely not doing that,” he mumbles, avoiding both of their gazes.

He feels Mariam give his knee a “we’ll talk about this later” tap. The Bing Crosby playing over the Bluetooth speakers seems trite and conspicuously awkward in the silence.

Then the doorbell rings. “I’ll get that!” he volunteers quickly, and even as he walks toward the front door, he can hear his sisters’ whispered conversation starting behind him.

Through the windows next to the front door, he can see that it’s Will. His heart somehow simultaneously drops to the floor and rises, burning, in his throat, but if he ignores him Will will just ring the doorbell again and his sisters will poke their noses in to find out what’s wrong, which is a subject Derek is definitely not ready to get into, and then where will they be? No way out but through. So he takes a deep breath and ducks outside.

It’s cold, but not awful. The last bits of daylight are just disappearing, and Will looks disheveled and unhappy, pulling predictably at his sweatshirt cuffs. Derek grabs him by the elbow and leads him off the porch, away from the door and his sisters’ earshot. “What are you doing here?” he whispers.

“I only came by to try to explain,” Will says. He moves like he’s going to touch Derek’s arm, but decides against it. “Please just hear me out.”

“This is exactly the wrong time for this,” Derek snaps, wrapping his arms tightly around his middle and backing up so that they’re on opposite sides of the front walk. Like the world’s most pitiful firebreak.

“Two minutes,” Will presses. “I promise.”

His hair is sticking almost straight up in the front, and that cowlick in the back refuses to lie down, too. His undereyes are dark, and he looks so sad and earnest that Derek pauses. Which is, apparently, enough an opening for Will. “Look, I didn’t give her your notebook,” he starts. “Not on purpose. That night at Justin’s party, when she cornered me in the bathroom, I set it on the sink to wash my hands and she just took it and I--”

Derek’s laugh of disbelief echoes across the cul-de-sac. “She had it for three months? And you just didn’t bother to tell me?”

“I didn’t know how!” Will cries. “I wasn’t trying to keep anything from you!”

“Yeah, but you did,” Derek says, trying to imagine himself as the reasonable one, the kind one. “Because you can’t stand up to March, and you never could. But the good news is that if you go back and suck up to her, she’ll never show the rules to anybody, because that’s all she wants, is you back under her thumb. Problem solved, you can go back to your golden life, and I can move on. It’s over.”

“If this is because you’re worried about her telling, I can--” Will starts.

Derek waves him away, ears starting to ring. “Shut up, stop, I don’t care what she does or doesn’t tell people! I’ll be _fine._ I just want to be done dealing with this, because that shit is your job. I’m not going to be your social crutch anymore. Now go home, Will.”

Will flounders for a second “That’s not what I--”

“He said to go home, Poindexter,” a voice calls from behind Derek.

He turns to see Chris, goalie face on, hands shoved in his hoodie pockets. He might be a lanky kid with braces, but the goalie face is not something Will would like to meet in a dark alley. And it’s sweet, sort of, but Derek is done having emotions for at least the next year. His throat hurts; he’s tired. “You don’t need to get involved in this, C,” he says.

“Yeah, he doesn’t want to talk to you!” Will says, so loud Derek thinks he sees a porch light click on across the street.

“Okay, you don’t get to say anything to him,” Derek says, pointing back at Will. He realizes that he has a hand out toward each of them, like a lion tamer.

Will looks pointedly from Derek to Chris to Derek and back, then throws his hands up and scoffs. “Oh, I get it. This has nothing to do with _us._ This is about you and Chow! You’re still in love with him!”

He sounds disbelieving, comic, and the unfairness of it feels like a brick to the stomach. Because as much as Derek wishes everyone in the world would leave him alone right now, he needs Will to know that that's not true. He wants to reach across, cup his jaw, say that of course he doesn't love Chris anymore. Not like that. Because, despite his better judgment and the way it hurts and the million other reasons not to, Derek actually-- well, there's no point saying, is there?

“Derek,” Chris starts. “Derek, your--”

Derek rolls right over him. “No, Will, this is absolutely about us. It’s about the fact that I’m just a boyfriend-shaped placeholder for you to cart around until you find something better, and maybe that was our deal, but I’m done with it. And my relationship with Chris has never been _any_ of your business.”

The front door slams, hard, and Derek’s head snaps over to see Lou standing on the porch looking cowed and small. “Was that--”

“Mariam,” Chris says guiltily. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize she was home.”

“Yeah, well, it was a fun family surprise,” Derek says waspishly. “How long was she there?”

Neither Chris nor Will will answer. The pale orange streetlights are starting to make Derek’s head hurt, and he doesn’t feel cold anymore, just overheated and overwhelmed, like waking up from a nightmare.

“A while,” Lou calls helpfully.

He drags both his hands down his face. It’s dead silent, besides the awkward shuffling noises. Now, the both of them learn volume control. Awesome.

Derek turns to Chris first. “So, my life is in several layers of shambles, and I don’t want to hear from you for at least three days,” he says, and when Chris looks suitably chastened, he turns to Will. He’s absolutely exhausted. “You, I don’t know. Good luck saving your own ass. Don’t talk to me.”

“Okay,” Will says. He tosses his keys from his left hand to his right, and when he looks up at Derek his eyes are watery enough to reflect the lit-up house. “But you have to know it was never about March, or about anyone else. Not really.”

A dry sob gets stuck in the space between Derek’s diaphragm and his throat, so he can’t say anything. Even if he had any idea what to say.

Instead, he trudges inside to find Mariam with the image of Will glued to his eyelids: forlorn, fidgety, holding those fairy lights in his eyes. Like candles.


	25. fuck me fuck this fuck everything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so sorry about the missed update on friday :/ i was feeling very under the weather. but we should be back to normal from here on out, meaning the last chapter (!!!!) will go up next friday, march 1st! holy balls!

So. There it is. His life is in a five-layer beefy burrito of shambles. A seven-layer bean dip of shambles. No Chris, no Will, and most devastatingly of all, no Mariam. She has already closed and locked her door by the time Derek makes it upstairs, so he just slams his own door and screams passionately into a throw pillow.

The facts of the situation are this: Derek cannot deal with Mariam hating him. Maybe she knows he was in love with Chris, which is a hateable offense, but he will eventually rejoin her good graces. He has to. They have also never fought over a boy before, but Derek cannot survive knowing she despises him, so there’s really no option B about it.

After he sits on his bed for a few moments, feeling the misery claw like a little animal at the walls of his ribcage, he gets up. He responds cursorily to Farmer and Ford and Lardo’s texts about what they had heard about the fight: yeah, it’s over, yes I’m fine, can we talk about it later, etc. He walks downstairs, past his mom and Lou eating on the couch, and silently makes a giant cup of ginger tea. As he’s standing in front of the microwave, watching Mariam’s favorite Doctor Who mug spin, his mom looks past Lou’s head at him. “You okay, hon?” she asks.

“I’m low-medium,” Derek says. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

“Okay,” she replies simply. Her eyes are still crumpled up in that way that means she wishes he would.

Lou, uncharacteristically, says nothing.

He pads back upstairs, leaves the mug outside Mariam’s door, and knocks quietly before he slips back into his own room. He stares at the lamp on his bedside table and thinks of that last day he and Mariam had been okay. Eat breakfast, she’d said, he thinks. Don’t stay up all night. Clean his room.

When he looks around, the floor is just about as coated in papers and clothes as it was then. So he heaves himself up from his bed and begins pushing the piles around.

That’s when his phone vibrates.

Which he’s inclined to ignore, except the miserable animal in his chest whispers that maybe it’s Mariam.

It is not.

It’s from Instagram, and at first he doesn’t register what he’s seeing. @heardathoffeldt is some stupid anonymous account that posts gossip and embarrassing pictures and rumors, and Derek had been tagged by them before. A few years ago, someone had posted that Derek was horny for the entire human race, but it had mostly been a non-event. He was already out.

This is not like that.

It’s an ugly video: kind of blurry, at first, looking like an alien ultrasound with the blue blob of the hot tub lights and the two bodies in the middle, one paler than the other. When it focuses, it’s clear enough that they are Will and Derek.

His breathing starts to go shallow.

The fact of last night, with the hot tub and the kissing, isn’t as perfect now as it had been this morning. But it was lovely nevertheless. One of the most tender, real-- hell, _romantic_ moments of Derek’s life to date. It had felt like he’d been looking at his relationship with Will from behind a sheer curtain, and last night he parted it and walked through to a version of things with stronger colors. Clearer sounds. It had felt like exhaling a breath he’d been holding in since September. It had felt like progress, and it had also-- naïve as the idea had been-- felt private. Like it belonged to him and Will and nobody else.

But if his fight with Will today took that moment and battered it a little, this video smashes it. Thoroughly.

The footage is filmed from above and a distance, but Derek is obviously in Will’s lap and they are obviously making out. And that’s-- funny or notable? Lascivious? The dream-like, almost-perfect memory takes on a dirty tinge. Slutty. Gross. Derek feels first hot all over, then cold, breathing still constricted as if a belt is tightening around his chest. His hand slips on the phone, so he lets it fall to his desk as he sits down.

It is not his moment anymore, or his and Will’s, but everyone else’s. And based on the comments, people are perfectly happy drawing their own conclusions about it.

Derek feels at once out-of-breath and totally violated. He needs an oxygen tank and a hot shower.

He needs his big sister.

 

Mariam is too reasonable to blast music in her bedroom when she’s angry, but even through her door Derek can hear the tinny sounds of music ripping through her headphones at full volume. It takes all of his patience to knock and wait for her to answer. When she finally hears him, she just says, “Go away, Derek.”

He immediately knocks again. This time, she actually opens the door, takes one look at his face, and silently stands aside to let him in.

She doesn’t say anything, though. Because she’s still mad. Which makes sense.

Derek just holds his phone out to her and gestures in a way that hopefully communicates: fuck me, fuck this, fuck everything.

“Oh, _honey,”_ she says, taking it from him and watching the video for roughly two seconds. “Is this Will?”

He nods.

She pats the bed next to her. “Okay, tell me what’s happening.”

So he does. Ugly, teary, a little snotty, and he wipes his nose on his sleeve more than an adult strictly should, but he does. Starting with the exact moment Will Poindexter had walked up to him with a letter, and ending with the exact moment Will Poindexter got in his truck and drove away. Because Derek told him to. Mariam’s face cycles through every expression that Derek has ever seen on it, plus a few extras; she looks particularly done when he tells her about being forced to go on the ski trip. But when his narrative winds to an end, she’s back on his side.

She might still hate him, but it’s at least not her only Derek-related emotion.

“And now, I don’t know,” Derek says. “Someone posted that. And it’s kind of fucking me up, which is ridiculous because what people think happened didn’t even happen and we’re not even together anymore and we weren’t ever really in the first place so I shouldn’t care. It’s stupid.”

Mariam whips a throw pillow at him. “Stop being an idiot. You broke up with your serious boyfriend _today_ , and now someone’s posting footage of a very private moment that happened _yesterday._ Of course you care. It’s not stupid.”

“Whatever,” Derek says, flopping heavily backward onto her bed.

She sighs. “Hey, if it helps, at least the caption isn’t that shitty. ‘That pool filter deserves a raise’-- I mean, they’re not even being slut-shamey or homophobic.”

“That’s such a low bar, Mariam,” Derek groans.

“Okay, okay,” she concedes, falling on her back next to him. “Just looking for a silver lining.”

Derek sighs dramatically, watches his rib cage going up and down. “You don’t have to be so nice to me. I know you still hate me about earlier.”

“I mean, I’m a little mad,” she says. “But just--”

She sighs and turns over onto her stomach, face toward Derek. “Are you and Chris, like, a thing or something now? Because you know I want you to be happy, but I’m just a little weirded out, and it’s kind of shitty to think that I was his beard all that time because I did really actually care about him and--”

“Oh my god, no,” Derek says, as soon as he can get his verbal feet under him. “Of course not. Oh god. Like, Chris is very straight, I think, but besides that even-- absolutely not. You’re my sister, and however big a crush I had on him last year, I’d never do that to you. That is a garbage person move. Nope, no, never.”

He reaches over to tap Mariam’s forehead for emphasis, and she squirms out of his reach. “Good to know,” she says. “Seriously, though, D. Why didn’t you just tell me about this stuff? I would’ve understood.”

Derek shrugs, tapping his stomach. “I just--” he starts, and he pinches the bridge of his nose between his hands as he feels his tear ducts start to twinge for the fortieth time today. “When you left, you told me to be the big sibling, and I didn’t want you to be disappointed that I was such a screw-up. Like, who manages to fuck up that badly, right? And I wanted you to think I could handle things without you, that I wasn’t still a needy little baby when I’m supposed to be a good example or whatever. And I thought--”

Mariam grabs one of his hands off his face so she can squeeze it. “I didn’t mean you had to do _everything_ by yourself. I wanted you to grow up a little bit, sure, but I like that you need me a little bit, habibi.” She sounds a little choked up herself.

“You don’t mind being needed?” Derek asks with a sniffle.

“Of course not,” Mariam says. “That’s what you do when you love somebody: you need them. You need me a little bit. I need you a little bit. And you wouldn’t even talk to me, the whole semester, and it sucked.”

They’re both properly teary by now, and Derek squeezes the hand he’s still holding. “I talked to you!” he protests, knowing full well what she means.

“You did, but you didn’t,” Mariam replies.

He just nods, and then they both sit in silence for a second. The soft Christmas music floats up from downstairs, and Derek tries to swallow the lump in his throat.

“I didn’t avoid you because I wanted to,” Derek says, finally. “I wanted to talk to you about all of this so badly, like, the second it happened. But I was scared to tell you about the thing with Chris, and if you didn’t know about that then I’d have to lie to you about literally everything else in my life. When things with Will were fake, I wanted to tell you about it. When I realized I really liked him, I wanted to tell you even more, because I knew how excited you would be. But I would’ve had to lie to you and I can’t-- I can’t do that.”

A floorboard out in the hallway creaks, and Mariam gives him a watery smile before speaking. “Come in,” she says, and a shamefaced Lou slips through the door.

“How much of that did you hear?” Derek asks, propping himself up on his elbows.

Lou looks down at the ground. “A lot. All of it, I think. I heard that Derek didn’t do it, even though people in my grade are saying he did.”

Derek flops back on the bed with a controlled scream. “Aaaaaaahhh,” he says in his inside voice, not loud enough to carry downstairs to their mom.

“That’s not helping, Lulu,” Mariam chides, but she still holds out a hand and pulls Lou to sit between them. “Look, now that we got past this crisis, can we promise not to keep things from each other anymore?”

“Okay,” Derek says, rolling his eyes just to indicate that he recognizes how clichéd this is, but he reaches out to hug Mariam anyway. The squish together around Lou’s little body, which is stiff as a board.

“Um,” Lou says, buried inside the embrace. “I have something to tell you.”

Derek peeks at her face, but it’s pretty blurry this close up, so he only thinks he sees her eyes screw up as she says, “I sent the letters.”

The world goes upside down yet again. Except it kind of doesn’t, because this makes the most sense of anything that has ever happened to Derek, especially in the past three months. Maybe his world has tilted about ninety degrees around its axis several times today, and this is the final, fourth tilt that brings everything back to normal.

“Hey Lou?” he says pleasantly. He can feel her shaking in his arms.

“Uh-huh?” she replies, with a little Chihuahua-esque tremor.

He smiles and nestles his head back into her shoulder. “I’m gonna fucking kill you.”


	26. ghost boy

“Derek! Derek, will you please chill?” Mariam yells, brandishing a chair as she stands in front of the closet where Lou has taken shelter.

 _“I will not chill,”_ Derek roars, ducking to try to get around her. She blocks him. “I absolutely will not, because my own little sister got bored and decided it would be super hilarious to drop an atomic bomb on my social life!”

Mariam’s room looks a little worse for wear. The pillows are all off the bed, her lampshade is crooked, and the suitcase she had been halfway through carefully unpacking has been upended onto the floor near her desk. All three of them are panting. Derek is threatening them both with Mariam’s hair dryer. He feels that, in this particular situation, it is his god-given right to totally lose it.

“I didn’t do it because it was funny,” Lou howls from inside the closet. “I just thought you were lonely, and Will obviously liked you, and it’s not like _you_ were ever going to do anything about it! I wanted to help!”

“Oh, and sending out all five was you being super extra helpful!” Derek shouts, pinning her with his eyes when she opens the closet door a crack.

“If you goblins would just relax--” Mariam tries to say, but Lou interrupts.

“Well, maybe some of the other ones liked you too! I wanted you to have options!”

“Bradley Knight is like _twenty one years old,_ Lou! I don’t want that option!”

 _“I will kill you both!”_ Mariam screeches.

They quiet down.

“Okay, Derek,” she says, prodding him with the chair just to show she means business. “Now, I understand why you’d be upset about this, but Lou didn’t do this just out of boredom. She cares about your happiness. You can’t murder her, all right? she’s your baby sister.”

“She’s a baby _rat,”_ Derek says.

“Okay, but you owe me. I just forgave you for writing a love letter to my boyfriend, right?”

That’s playing dirty, Derek thinks, but he lowers the hair dryer. “Yeah, I guess,” he says.

“So maybe you can forgive Lou for sending it,” she says.

He groans. “I don’t want you to sound reasonable right now.”

She smirks at him, setting her chair on the ground before proudly planting her hands on her hips. “Now _that’s_ how you set a good example.”

Lou, noting the silence, inches the door open far enough to make eye contact with him. “Sorry, Derek,” she says. “It’s just-- they had stamps and everything.”

Mariam shriek-laughs. “They had _stamps?”_

“Uh-huh,” Lou says, feeling safe enough to lean through the doorway, hip popped out. “And addresses.”

“Okay, Lou, this still isn’t funny, because it’s not always safe for boys to tell other boys they like each other. People are bad about that sometimes. Derek could have gotten hurt,” Mariam says, and Derek sticks his tongue out at his little sister. Then she turns to him. “But dude. Writing letters is fantasizing. Stamping and addressing them? Is it possible that you’re not as happy as you thought making everyone forget you exist? Those aren’t the moves of someone who doesn’t want to connect with people.”

Derek huffs out a breath, walks over to the bed, and flops down face-first instead of responding.

“Lou shouldn’t have sent them, obviously,” Mariam continues. “But maybe it’s time to rethink that commitment you have to being a ghost.”

He hears a whispered argument behind him, then feels the mattress dip as someone climbs on the bed to his right. “I’m sorry,” Lou says. “I didn’t think about that.”

“It’s okay,” Derek says.

“Do you promise not to hurt me if I hug you?” she asks.

He shakes his head no. She hugs him anyway.

 

Of course, Mariam figures everything out.

He makes a box the next afternoon, filling it with everything he can find that’s Will-related: a pair of headphones, a couple of Ellie’s polaroids, a jacket that Will had insisted on loaning him on a cold day. He digs around in his desk drawers, but they’re messier than he thought; he can’t find all those notes among the other piles of looseleaf paper and old assignments. He’s bent over the bottom drawer, trying to pull out other things he can recycle, when Mariam walks in.

She holds out her phone to him, open to an email draft to Instagram customer support. “I tried to be scary, but you can let me know if it’s too scary,” she says as he skims through it.

The gist is that the video is of two minors, was posted without their consent, and likely violates child pornography laws, which would surely be a fun project for the company’s legal division. You know, if they’re feeling lucky. “I’d call this just scary enough,” Derek says, passing the phone back. “Thank you. Seriously.”

“No problem, bud,” Mariam says as the phone makes the little swooshy sending noise. “Did you know I’m thinking about law school?”

“No shit,” Derek says. “You’d be good at that.”

She smiles, then settles into Derek’s pillows and cues up a season of Parks & Rec for distraction. They’re in the middle of the third episode when Mariam’s phone pings again. “That’s Instagram,” she says, scrolling quickly through the boilerplate. “The video is down, the account has been reprimanded, and you are officially safe for work again.”

“Thank you,” Derek says again, pulling her into an awkwardly-angled hug. “See, I need you after all.”

She pinches his nose.

When he goes to the @heardathoffeldt profile again, sure enough, the video is gone. He breathes in for three, out for five, relieved, and closes the app.

“Don’t kill me, but that’s really cute,” Mariam says, hooking her chin over his shoulder.

Derek hasn’t changed the background picture. He doesn’t really want to, either. It’s a cheesy shot of Will and Derek after a soccer game-- against South Central, he remembers, because that had been the day Will talked to the coach from Butler. Will is kind of sweaty and shiny under the stadium lights, and he’s holding Derek bridal-style, leaning back to balance. It’s patently ridiculous, with Derek’s arms flung out awkwardly like a neglected marionette, and Will’s arms had trembled with the effort not to drop him, but they both smile like they’re having the time of their lives. Really, they had been.

“I gotta change that,” Derek says.

“Or you could figure things out with him,” Mariam offers.

He sighs. “I don’t think so. There was no reason for us to make sense in the first place. We even had our magical moment, or whatever, but it didn’t stick. That one isn’t meant to be.”

“Well, that’s not how anything works,” she replies, exasperated. “I mean, when I got together with Chris, we had our little confession moment and our first kiss, and it was great, but then we also had to figure our shit out. Like, that’s what happens after you have a moment. You have to talk about things. Bad things, good things. Complicated things. Things like--I don’t know-- whether your breakup happened because you’re really not good together or because his ex-girlfriend is a heinous witch who just knows exactly how to push your buttons to make you insecure?”

Derek glares at her. “That’s an oddly specific example.”

She puts her arms around his shoulders and rocks him back and forth as if he’s not a foot taller than she is. “I’m just saying.”

Derek feels very small again, and he plays with Mariam’s spinner ring as he watches the laptop screen go dark.

“Whatever happens,” Mariam says. “I’m weirdly proud of you for what you said to him during that fight.”

He wrinkles his nose.

“I mean it!” she insists. “I’ve never seen you chew somebody out like that before. You stood up for yourself, you know? I was impressed.” She squeezes his arm. “You’re starting to take up space, ghost boy.”

 

Even with the video taken care of, Derek still feels the possibility of the rules going public hanging over his head.  He spends the rest of his Christmas break in that fog of uncertainty, sleepwalking through the small family dinner on Christmas Eve and the enormous one on Christmas Day. He lets his baby cousins steal his phone with very little protest. He tries to work up the appropriate level of enthusiasm for everything, but it’s exhausting, and he ends up saying that he’s not feeling well, that he’s going to bed early, more nights than not. He doesn’t sleep well, either, just lies awake and watches _Clueless_ on repeat. He does not change his phone background. When he told Will that he didn’t care what March did, he mostly meant it, but if the other shoe is going to drop, he wishes it would hurry up and fucking fall already.

Then, in the very early hours of New Year’s Eve, he decides he’s sick of it.

It’s five AM, nineteen hours before the new year really starts, but not everything is going to have poetic timing, so he gets out of bed and settles at his desk. He cracks open a new Moleskine, one he got for Christmas, because oddly enough he still finds them comforting. It’s pocket-size, as usual, but this time it’s emerald green.

The sky is still dark, and when he looks over to his windows, chewing on his pen, they just reflect his room back at him. His bookshelves, his cluttered dresser.

RESOLUTIONS, he writes at the top of the page.

He limits himself to five, because his first instinct is just to set himself up for failure by going way too big and too broad. He needs these to stick. “What do I actually want?” he asks aloud, and after another minute of thought, he writes:

  1. Go to bed before midnight.
  2. Marie Kondo my books.
  3. Hang out with one person who is not Chris, Ford, Ellie, or my sisters.
  4. Express my feelings at least once a day.



He stalls. He wants to write down something asinine about drinking water or moisturizing, but he already knows what this one should be. It’s just hard.

     5. 

He taps his pen, fidgets. He digs around in his desk drawer for chapstick and puts it on. After a solid forty-five minutes of hemming and hawing, he covers his eyes with one hand and writes it down.

Then he gets up and walks downstairs to where he can already hear his mom shuffling around. She has rounds to do this morning, and she’s playing Ella Fitzgerald very quietly from her phone as she waits for the coffee to brew. Her pajama pants have little stars all over them.

“Hey, Mom?” he asks, voice just-awake scratchy.

“You’re up early,” she replies, flipping her reading glasses on top of her head to look at him. “Is everything okay?”

He grabs the back of one of the kitchen stools and twists it gently back and forth. “Yeah, it’s fine. But tomorrow, um.” He clears his throat. “Can we take the car out?”

  1. Drive myself to school.




	27. the point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the late update!!! i wanted this chapter to be exactly right, so it took quite a bit longer than anticipated, but hopefully it's worth it!

So they do. Parallel parking, roundabouts, the broad rural roads that take them out to the Ethiopian market. He feels a little silly having his mom in the passenger seat when he already has his license, but it helps. Having her there.

They go on the expressway the day before school starts again. The last time he’d tried to navigate it, he had a panic attack so sudden and severe he had to pull over before he even got onto the access ramp and do those yoga breaths his childhood grief counselor had taught him until he could unclamp his hands from around the steering wheel. He hadn’t told anyone about that, just drove back home and pretended the traffic was too bad to bother going wherever he was supposed to have gone.

This time, he’s so tense he feels like he’s vibrating. He hunches over the steering wheel like a human candy cane. But he does it. Gets on, changes lanes back and forth and back, gets off again. His heart rate skyrockets, but he does it.

Afterward, his mom directs him gently through the side streets and back, not to their house, but to Annie’s.

“You like Annie’s?” Derek asks as he pulls into a parking spot. He’s not sure why he’s so surprised.

“Of course,” his mom says, smiling softly as she peers up through the windshield at the pink-and-white awning. “Your dad took me here on our first date.”

 

“You did good, kid,” she says, saluting Derek with her latte. “I’m really proud of you.”

Derek blushes and ducks his head, blowing pointlessly on the top of his own drink. “It’s just driving,” he mumbles. “Mariam doesn’t freak out about it.”

“Well, everybody’s different,” she says, wrapping her hands around her mug. “But I think being wary of driving is pretty reasonable. After what happened with your dad. Even I still try not to drive past the Austin Boulevard exit.”

“I know,” Derek says, confessional-quiet.

She looks at him like he’s wounded her. “Of course you do,” she whispers. Derek doesn’t know how to make her feel better, so he doesn’t say anything at all.

She sniffs and looks down to straighten her sweater. “I owe you an apology,” she begins, and that is-- not at all what Derek expected. “When-- after your dad’s accident, I was sort of selfish about him.”

“No, Mom--” Derek interrupts, but she waves a hand at him.

“No, I was,” she continues. “I had my reasons to be, and I don’t know if I was capable of acting differently, but I didn’t want to talk about him. It hurt too much. And I figured, maybe, if I kept things to myself enough, you guys wouldn’t know how much I was grieving. But kids, especially you guys, are perceptive. You knew I was hurting. You just didn’t get the whole picture.”

“I don’t--” he starts, then breaks off to figure out where that sentence is going. Derek has foggy, little-kid memories of the time just after Dad died. His mom’s mom had moved in for a while to take care of them all: at first, they all swam around in that house like they were lost, eating funeral potatoes and making faces at Lou, who was so little that she didn’t know why she was freaking out. Then Derek and Mariam, in that rubbery way kids have, started fighting and playing and going to school again with increasingly brief and infrequent breaks where they didn’t want to sleep in their own beds, or they screamed at their classmates for no reason. But Mom was just-- quiet. For a really long time. No screaming or crying or tears, just the placid surface of a dark lake. Those are memories Derek doesn’t really know how to parse; he can’t tell if he was sad or angry or happy or scared.  

“What do you mean?” he asks, feeling buried in sand.

Mom clears her throat, pinches the bridge of her nose the exact same way Derek does when he’s trying not to cry. “What I mean is-- I don’t have to tell you how hard it was to lose your father,” she says. “You were there. But, honey, how often do I tell you how wonderful it was to have him in the first place?”

Derek sniffs, but he settles his chin into his hand to listen.

“He’d take me here and read to me,” she says. “For the first, I don’t know, five years we were married, I was in residency, so I was exhausted all the time, and date night was coming here for tea and listening to him read  _ Lord of the Rings _ or  _ Pride and Prejudice _ or, when I had a terrible day at the hospital, one of those bodice-ripper romance novels, because they made me laugh. He had a really nice reading voice. Just like you do.”

Derek gives her a watery smile and feels the world around him spin back twenty years or so, back to his newlywed parents, staring softly at each other across the table. In his head, the lighting is butter-yellow, and Mandy has an eyebrow ring, and his dad is wearing one of those windbreakers that Derek wears now. He can hear garbled snippets of long-finished conversations as if through water.

“He used to cry at everything,” she continues. “Movies and little old couples out on walks together. The first day we brought each of you home from the hospital, he was in tears for twenty-four hours. I remember you were so small as a newborn that he could hold you against his chest with just the one hand and blow his nose with the other. And he was generous, you know, with his time and effort and love. Like he was on the honor system with the whole world. I admired that so much, even if it frustrated me sometimes. We made each other better people. I wouldn’t be who I am or have what I have without him, heartbreak or no.”

Normally, Derek tries to fight tears, but he lets these ones fall. It’s what his dad would have done. “But you can lose people so easily,” he says, voice thick. “Things can end forty years earlier than they’re supposed to for no good reason except a patch of black ice in the wrong place. Everything is so-- temporary.”

She nods sympathetically. “I know, hon, and there are still times that I’m angry we lost him so soon when other people get to live to be a hundred. But that doesn’t devalue any of the time we did have with him. He knew just as well as you do that things end, but that made him determined to use the time that he did have. He loved you guys enough for an entire lifetime, sweets.”

He wipes under his eyes with his sweater sleeves, takes a long drink of his coffee to try to scald his vocal cords into working. “But don’t you--” he starts, before his voice cracks off. “Don’t you wish he was still here?”

“Of course, but I’m also constantly finding little pieces of him. He was neat as a pin, like Mariam is. He would tell you just how he felt about you, no embarrassment, like Lou will. And your imagination, you got that from him. He was always telling you guys stories about yourselves, about the people you’d grow up to be, and they’d change every time but in every single one you were wonderful.” She reaches across the table to squeeze his hands. “Because he was particularly gifted at seeing the good in people. You have that part of him, too.”

That fight with Will flashes to the front of Derek’s mind, how easily he’d believed the worst, and he tries to shrug it off. “Not always,” Derek says, and the old guilt of being an insufficient imitation of his father lounges heavily over his shoulders.

She squeezes his hands again and looks at him with that double-whammy of doctor and mom seriousness. “Do you remember what your dad always used to say? That it’s not worth doing anything--”

“If you only do it halfway,” Derek finishes croakily.

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t mean you do everything perfectly,” she says. “It means you try. You try to believe in people. You try to love people right. You try to stay with the people you do love. That’s what makes you grow.”

Derek shrugs, lets the first few false starts of his next sentence die in his throat. “What if I’m just setting everyone up so I can disappoint them?” he says finally, and it feels like coughing out water that’s been in his lungs forever. “What if I’m setting myself up to get my heart broken? Isn’t it kind of irresponsible to take that on?”

She mulls that one over for a second, propping her chin in her right hand. “Is this about Will?” she asks bluntly.

Derek shrugs. “No. Yes.”

“Well, I don’t know what happened between you two, and it’s hypocritical of me to tell you that you can’t pretend things don’t affect you, because I know that’s the example I set. But I’ll tell you what I did see this fall. I saw you open up to new people. I saw you do things that were a little scary for you. I saw you come home happy from places you enjoyed being. I think you showed a side of you to people that only we used to see. That, in my opinion, is good for you.” She flexes and re-folds her fingers around her mug. “You’re my philosophical kid, so I’ll put it this way. Time is a flat circle. Everything ends. Sometimes it ends badly. It’s hard to know where anything will take you. But if everything ends, that means that getting invested in something temporary isn’t reckless. It’s just human.”

He drums his heel against the leg of his chair, keyed up and urgent. “But what if I ruin things?” he presses. “How am I supposed to love people knowing that at some point, I’m going to hurt them?”

His mom reaches across to brush something off his right eyebrow, and she tilts her head at him fondly. “Well, you can try not to care about other people, I suppose. But you can’t stop them from loving you, baby, so what’s the point?”

Derek laughs a little bit, throat still tight, and pulls a few napkins from the dispenser on the table to try and get some of the snot off his face, at least. “So,  _ Lord of the Rings _ , huh?” he asks, casting a quick glance around the shelves closest to their table.

They sit together for as long as it takes for the dregs of their drinks to get cold, then a little longer. His mom finds a weathered paperback of  _ Anne of Green Gables _ to flip through. Derek loses himself in the opening of  _ The Fellowship of the Rings _ , the lush countryside of Middle Earth feeling like a second home to him when he imagines that it is scattered with his father’s footprints.


	28. does it work?

Apparently Christmas break in Australia is roughly a year long, and Mariam needs to take herself to the eye doctor, so Derek rides shotgun to the first day back at school. It’s fine with him. There’s always tomorrow, and he likes the feeling of leaning down to give her a little wave before he walks through the front doors. It makes him look more confident than he feels. And given how many days have gone by without a peep from March Austen, he’ll really take any confidence he can get.

He’s starting to wonder if maybe she never saw the rules after all, but based on his history with luck, that’s unlikely.

Ford and Ellie, propped against the wall just inside the front entrance, each grab onto one of his elbows as he comes in. He feels them lock into place like armor and loves them somehow more than before.

“So how much of a freak does everyone think I am?” Derek asks.

“The exact same amount as always,” Ford answers, clipped and efficient like a secret agent handler. “Four days after your video, a lacrosse party got about as busted as it’s possible to be and everyone moved on. The captain and the co-captain both got MIP’ed, so now Freshman Chad is in charge.”

 _“Fuck_ the lax team,” Ellie says forcefully, which is the biggest display of emotion Derek has ever seen from her.

Just ahead of them and to the right, AdamandJustin talk in animated terms about what sounds like Dungeons & Dragons. In another life, Derek would turn his face away and scurry past as quickly as he could, but he’s going to self-improve this year, goddammit, so he lets the eye contact happen. To his surprise, they both reach out, smiling, for a fist bump.

“Suh, Nursey,” Justin says.

“How you been, Nurse?” Adam echoes.

This is surprising in the same way that his mom knowing about Annie’s was. He had assumed, perhaps pessimistically, that the friends he made because of Will would disappear as soon as the relationship did-- awkward nods in the hallway at best, not the same casual acceptance that he’d gotten as soon as he’d plopped down at their lunch table in September.

That’s not to say that everything’s totally fine. He notices at least three people make eye contact with him and then turn to whisper to whoever’s next to them, that disbelieving-and-delighted expression on their faces. He feels a little bit exposed and a little bit embarrassed, and he lets himself feel that way.

“Okay, what the hell is this?” Ellie says then, and Derek looks directly ahead to see a mass of rumbling people like a storm cloud, gathered around the corner where-- fuck. Where his locker is.

At least half of them have their phones out. Some laugh, some look scandalized, some mumble angrily to the person next to them. But they’re all transfixed by whatever is at the nucleus of their ranging bodies, and when Derek manages to elbow his way past all of them, so is he.

His locker is papered with stills from that fucking video. Top to bottom, blurry, blown-up sheets of printer paper with his bare torso and Will’s illuminated in ugly electric blue. The chatter of the crowd around him turns to buzzing, then silence. His whole body feels like clay, like if someone hit him in the stomach he’d just break at the waist and fall over.

In industrial-size black Sharpie, the middle one reads: YOU SHOULD REALLY BE MORE CAREFUL.

And if anything has ever had March’s signature on it, this does.

Humiliation, anger, and a sour kind of despair roll through Derek’s stomach in turns. He breathes in for three, out for five, and reaches forward with a steady hand to rip off each of the papers in order, from top to bottom.

Except the one in the middle. He leaves that one up. People are going to hear about it regardless.

As he storms back through the lingering crowd, he can see someone tall and smug and blonde turn away from him and disappear into the bathroom. He beelines for her, blowing past Ford and Ellie’s matching looks of concern.

And then, of course, there’s Will. Derek narrowly avoids shoulder-checking him, single-minded as he is, but then Will catches his elbow. “Hey, what-- what’s going on?”

His heart seizes up at Will’s grip on his arm, and he just kind of stares at it until Will removes it awkwardly and shoves it back into his pocket. “Sorry,” he says, and Derek doesn’t want him to; he feels blindsided by how badly he wants to collapse into the soft familiarity of that soccer hoodie instead.

“Someone took it upon themselves to redecorate my locker,” Derek says, when his brain comes back online. He shoves the pictures into Will’s hands on impulse. “You want these?”

“What the fuck,” Will says, barely even looking at the crumpled papers. It’s not a question.

“Yeah, it sucks,” Derek says frankly. “Sorry.”

He’s got to hate this, Derek realizes, and he feels guilty even though he knows he didn’t do anything. But then Will’s hand lands on his shoulder, and he has no choice but to look up. “No, I mean, are you okay? I’m so sorry, man, I don’t know why people are doing this to just you. That’s not fair,” Will says, and Derek regrets making eye contact immediately because his eyes are the color of dark honey and full of concern.

He shrugs and swallows down the lump threatening to form in his throat. “It might be because you’re you and I’m me and your actual witch of an ex is falling all over herself to forgive you, but that's just a guess.”

“Look, I’m really sorry,” Will repeats. “I can talk to her if--”

“No,” Derek interrupts. “I’ve been putting this conversation off for way too long. I’ll talk to her. You just-- look, take the win, all right? Sit back and be glad you can stay out of this. I can handle whatever people say.”

He turns before he can see Will start to respond, but he doesn’t quite make it to the bathroom before he hears a booming: “Hey _GUYS!”_

The hallway falls silent. Derek doesn’t turn around, but he does stop.

"YOU MAY HAVE FORGOTTEN THAT I MADE OUT WITH SOMEONE IN A HOT TUB AT THE SKI LODGE," Will shouts, with the controlled-- but not hidden-- rage of a Hollywood hockey coach. "I UNDERSTAND WHY THAT'S FASCINATING AND CONFUSING FOR MANY OF YOU, BUT REST ASSURED THAT SOMEDAY, SOMEBODY WILL WANT TO MAKE OUT WITH YOU, AND THEN YOU CAN FIGURE THE TECHNICALITIES OUT FOR YOURSELF. IN THE _MEANTIME_ , IF I HEAR ANY ONE OF YOU ASSHOLES BRING UP THAT VIDEO OR EVEN CONSIDER HARASSING DEREK ABOUT IT, I WILL PERSONALLY BEAT YOU INTO THE GROUND. FEEL FREE TO TAKE UP ANY CONCERNS YOU HAVE WITH ME."

It’s like he sucked all the air out of the hallway. Nobody has anything to say to that, and Derek can feel the focus of the entire student body shift away from him, which he’s grateful for.

He suddenly remembers that game of spin-the-bottle: feeling the anxiety in his chest, hearing the scrape of glass against tile floor, and seeing, for the first time, the brief flash of something golden that he knows now is the core of Will Poindexter.

 

“What’s your fucking game plan, Austen?” Derek says as he bursts into the girls’ bathroom.

March peers into the mirror, eyes half closed, as she scrubs at a little blotch of mascara in her eyelid crease. “Really, Derek? The ladies room?” she drawls, as if he hadn’t said anything at all. She turns to face him, hip propped against the sink. “You’re already an exhibitionist. Are you that eager to add voyeur to the list?”

“I’ll get out when you tell me what you’re trying to accomplish,” Derek says, refusing to play casual with her. “You can start with that lovely new wallpaper that I assume I can thank you for.”

“Well, I just figured if you needed attention badly enough to leak your own sex tape, you wouldn’t mind a little redecoration,” she says, unraveling the platinum braid over her shoulder and combing through it with her fingers. She raises her eyebrows at him innocently.

Derek grabs the edge of the sink for support. “Leak my--” he starts, voice hitting a squeak. “Why the hell would I do that? You were the one who sent them the video!”

She looks at him as if he has three ears. “Obviously you did!” she says. “You finally got in Will’s pants, and you leveraged that to make yourself seem cooler! It’s not like you ever really cared about him, and I should know! You did this!”

“I absolutely did not!” Derek says, so angry that things start to shimmer in his peripheral vision.

“Well, neither did I!” March shouts, and a toilet flushes in one of the stalls behind them.

They both go silent for a moment as a redheaded underclassman leaves the stall and washes her hands. Derek looks away to give the poor girl some dignity, but March watches her intensely, furrowing her brow as if she’s not rinsing off the soap fast enough. Once she leaves, Derek checks under each of the stall doors for feet.

After a second, he straightens up and flexes his fingers as if to bring himself back under control. “Whatever,” he says. “That’s not what I came to talk about.”

He can practically see March puff back up as she remembers the upper hand she’s had since September. “Right,” she says, Cheshire cat smile spreading across her face. “Your little boyfriend contract.”

“Yeah, that,” Derek says, watching her pop the case off the back of her phone, take out a small sheet of lined paper, and unfold it.

“No kissing,” she says. “Well, that one went just peachy, don’t you think? Go to parties and soccer games, so you could have a life while you did all this. Drive Derek and Lou to school-- well, I’ll pass on making a joke about that one.”

“Thanks so much,” Derek says acidly.

“The ski trip-- that turned out fun! You were really wringing this situation for all it was worth, huh? Oh, and the notes. Of course the notes. I should have known Emotional Tree Stump Poindexter wouldn’t come up with a move like that. Cute, though. A nice touch, if a little hard to believe,” she says, flipping the paper closed and using it to fan her face casually.

Derek feels his hackles raise in Will’s defense. “The notes were his idea, actually,” he says. “And for that matter, so were the football games and the parties and the ski trip. Unlike you, I wasn’t using Will to social climb.”

March scoffs. “Oh, don’t try and claim the moral high ground with me, you little weasel. If you weren’t trying to climb the ranks, then what the hell was in this for you?”

“None of your business,” Derek says. “I owed him one. So are we done here? Can’t you just post a picture of those stupid rules on that stupid Instagram and get it over with?”

She looks frustrated and confused. Like Medusa if her hair failed to turn someone into stone. She tugs at the ends of her hair, purses her lips, and reformulates her attack. “Oh, that’s right,” she says. “Apathy boy. I remember that from middle school. You don’t care now, just like you didn’t care back then, when we stopped being friends.”

Derek rolls his eyes so hard he sees the back of his own skull. “Now you’re blaming that on me?”

“Yeah, I am,” she says, breathless as a villain giving their final monologue. “Do you know why I did that, Derek? It was because I fucking _knew_ this would happen. Even back then, I knew that Will would never love me if you were around. And I was right, because it might have taken a few years but after all that time you’re still a snake who gets off on ruining my life.”

There’s a lot to unpack there, Derek thinks.

He’s also not going to do it.

“Well, you have Will back, just like you wanted, and I can disappear until I graduate the way I always wanted.” Derek says. “This can be over.”

He studies his fingernails, keeping a peripheral watch on March’s face. One of the taps is leaking, and the drops splat to the porcelain basin at long intervals.

“I don’t have Will back,” she says abruptly. “He left a voicemail chewing me out after the ski trip and he hasn’t talked to me since. He doesn’t even open my texts.”

Derek pauses. He tries to recalibrate his world according to this, but it doesn’t work, and he’s just left with the sense that someone just dumped lighter fluid on the torch he’s still carrying for one red-headed goalie. March looks genuinely sad, too, eyes dropping like a puppy in an ASPCA commercial. “It’s like we were never even friends,” she whispers.

“Maybe you weren’t,” Derek says flatly. “If you treat people like objects, you give up your right to feel betrayed when they leave you.”

March might whimper. It’s too quiet to be sure.

It doesn’t feel good to win this after all, Derek thinks. Just being alone in this bathroom, March’s now-obvious loneliness echoing off the tiled walls, makes him wince. Don't get him wrong, he still hates her, but-- she spent all that time making him miserable, and now she’s done it to herself. And he knows exactly how much it sucks. He couldn't fix that even if he wanted to.

“Well, post the rules, don’t post them, whatever,” Derek says, throwing up his hands and turning around to head for the door. “I’m done here.”

“Wait, Derek,” March says. There’s a note of desperation in her voice, one that he’s never heard before. He stops just inside of the door, one hand on the frame, and turns his head to listen. “Does it work?”

“What?”

“Not caring about anything,” March says, voice a little stronger now. “Does it work?”

Derek sighs deeply, runs a hand over his grown-out hair. “I actually care about a lot of things, March,” he says. “I cared when you stopped talking to me in middle school. I cared when I saw that video. I used to try not to, because I thought that made me safe, but it doesn’t work that way. It just means you miss stuff.”

She blinks and takes a deep breath-- in for three, out for four, Derek counts. Not quite perfect. “Do you care about Will?”

He laughs at that, just a short, surprised huff, and tells the truth. “Yeah, I do,” he says. “A lot. Even after everything.”

March squares her shoulders like she’s gathering her resolve, and then she suddenly sticks out her right hand, bracelets jingling, rules crumpled in her first. “Okay. Take them back. I won’t post anything.”

“What does that-- _why?”_ Derek asks.

“I’m not a psychopath,” she snaps. “I care about him too. Maybe I still hope you choke, but if you’re what he wants, then I can’t change his mind. And it’s not worth making him hate me in the process. So just take the damn rules back, Nurse.”

Very gently, like removing the thorn from a wounded lion’s paw, he does.

March does not apologize. Derek doesn’t ask her to.


	29. heart-shaped sunglasses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fam this is the second!!! to last!!! chapter!!! the end of this fic goes up on friday!!!! how did this happen!!!! on a related note does anyone have any bonus scene requests so i can live in this universe a little longer

It’s Saturday morning, light streaming in bright and cold from the living room windows, and Derek picks at the flaking Nike decal on his sweatpants. “Thanks for coming over,” he says, and Chris nods.

He turns on his end of the couch to face Derek directly and crosses his legs. “No problem, dude,” he says. “I’m glad we’re hanging out again.”

Mariam is gone for the weekend visiting friends at Purdue, Mom’s at the hospital, and it’s a little early on a weekend morning for Lou to be up and moving. It’s quiet, and Chris taps his fingers together as he waits for Derek to start.

“So are we gonna talk about this?” he asks.

“In a minute,” Derek says.

Chris nods. He makes it about twelve seconds.

“I never got to tell you I’m sorry about what happened with Poindexter,” he blurts. “Like, the part where I was there and the part where you broke up. Is that mean to say? Oh my god.”

“I’m sorry about what happened with Mariam,” Derek offers in return.

“I mean, I’m not messed up about anymore,” Chris says with a shrug. “I think she did the right thing. It was super sucky for a while there, but I’m glad she’s doing good in college and stuff. So.”

Derek smiles fondly, feeling the edges of his eyes crinkle up. “Ah, Chow, the sun really does shine out of your ass. No, but for real,” he says more seriously. He watches his fingers fidget with the tasseled edge of a throw blanket. “Uh, I owe you an apology. For everything. Like, for pulling back when you were dating Mariam and for freaking out on you this fall. I should’ve been there, man. I knew how much you cared about her, but I was just concerned with my own feelings, so I acted like an asshole.”

Chris’s eyes are button-shiny, and he reaches out to punch Derek on the knee. “Forgiven, dude. But I just-- when you didn’t talk to me about what happened with the letters. I know some guys might be really shitty about that kind of thing, but I hope you didn’t think I--”

“Jesus, no, of course not,” Derek replies quickly. “No, like, it was more about the fact that I didn’t-- want it to be real? Does that make sense?”

“Not really,” Chris says, looking tentatively relieved.

Derek still hasn’t put his contacts in-- Chris is the only one outside of his family who sees him without them-- so he takes his glasses off to fidget with. Conveniently, this also makes the world a little less sharp, a little less demanding.

“So it’s like the books I read, right?” he starts. “They have nothing to do with my real life. And that’s where I was comfortable with stuff like crushes and dating being-- my imagination, you know, fantasies. Every crush I ever had was like that, some made-up version of that person that I could be obsessed with from a distance. You’re the first person I ever liked that I really _knew._ And who knew me.”

He takes a deep breath. Chris could honestly teach a course in active listening; he nods avidly, chin in his hands, elbows resting on his knees, like the Stretch Armstrong he is.

“But it wasn’t supposed to be real-real. I was supposed to be able to just adore you from afar like with everybody else. So when you knew about it, that was too much and I kind of wanted to light myself on fire.”

He is aware that this makes no sense, but Chris is still giving him that coaching look, like he believes Derek could fly if he really tried but he’s ready to catch him just in case. “Do you still--”

“Nope, definitely not,” Derek stutters. “No, like, after a while, I realized it had faded away and I just missed my friend.”

Chris breaks into one of his signature ridiculous four-dimensional smiles and throws his arms out for a hug. “I missed you too, Rocky.”

“I thought we agreed to retire that nickname in like fourth grade,” Derek grumbles, but he leans into the hug anyway, squeezing just hard enough to be kind of annoying.

As soon as Chris lets go of him, Derek chugs half his cup of tea, relieved to be done with the feelings-y part of this interaction. Baby steps, right?

Chris apparently has not heard of baby steps.

“So what happened with you and Archie comics?” he asks as Derek slurps.

The tea diffuser falls from the bottom of the mug to slap him in the face. “Nothing,” he gurgles, wiping his chin. “Dumb fight, I guess.”

“That sucks,” Chris says.

“S’okay, C, I know you don’t like him,” Derek deflects, tapping his fingernails on the side of his mug as he waits for his glasses to de-fog.

“Well, you do,” Chris says simply. “And it was kind of dope when he yelled at the entire school for you, so I’m willing to give him a chance. Besides, what’s the point in believing the worst of people?”

And Derek knows he’s heard that somewhere before. “Have you been talking to Caitlin Farmer?” he asks.

Chris shakes his head, going slightly pink. “She’s cute, though.”

“Yeah, you should be,” Derek says decisively.

“I’ll talk to her if you talk to Poindexter,” Chris replies, pushing at his left shoulder.

Derek just flops backward over the arm of the couch. “I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even want that,” he says, couching the vulnerability with a smidge of dramatics. “I’m trying to be less scared of talking about my feelings with people, but I know him so well I can picture exactly how his face would look when he tried to let me down easy and I just can’t get past that.”

That’s when they both hear footsteps beat up the front stairway behind them. As he turns, Derek just barely catches a glimpse of the cuffs of Lou’s turquoise pajama pants disappearing around the corner.

“Eavesdropping is rude!” he yells after her.

“Just hold on!” she screams back.

He and Chris stare at each other in exasperated confusion for less than ten seconds. Then Lou comes thundering back down the stairs with a familiar object in her hands, an object which she plops unceremoniously into Derek’s lap. It’s made of dark, glossy wood, with floral shapes cut into the edges, and Derek touches the familiar divots in the lid with reverent fingers.

“Aisha Louise,” he says calmly. “Did you steal Dad’s cigar box from me?”

She squeaks, ducking out of hitting distance. “Yeah, okay, but _openitbeforeyoukickmyass!”_

“Language,” Derek chides automatically. Still, he tilts the lid back, hinges squeaking familiarly, to see--

Notes.

Stacks and stacks of them. So many that a few fall out as soon as he opens the box; they’re mostly on lined notebook paper, but he sees a few slips of green cardstock and foil-backed gum wrappers.

“You were just gonna lose them in all your crap,” Lou says, by way of explanation. “I thought you’d want them eventually.”

He sifts through the pile with his fingers. He’s not sure if he even wants to read them, terrified as he is, but then he sees one with a little heart drawn on the front in ballpoint pen. That one, he opens.

“ _From the groupchat this morning: u rly went outta ur league bro game respects game he’s a dime. 10 points if you can guess who sent that it starts with T and ends with Ango_ ,” he reads.

That one’s not so scary. So he opens another-- they’re hopelessly out of order, of course, so he just picks up the first one he sees.

“ _After you left, my mom came to my room just to tell me she really likes you. I’m glad she has good taste_ ,” he says, and Lou makes a little gagging noise at the same time that Chris _aww_ s.

He gets faster as he goes, opening them up with more and more certainty every time. He feels like he’s on a rollercoaster, begging it to speed up and slow down at the same time, helpless against the way his stomach goes airborne for a second as he finishes each one. He reads the first few aloud, but eventually falls silent, showering his lap and the couch and the coffee table with little slips of paper. It looks like Christmas.

_I get excited at the end of my first period art class because I know APUSH is next & I get to sit next to you. _

_I never really understood what made eyebrows good or bad, but you have good eyebrows._

_I wish we hadn’t made that rule about no kissing, but it might also be good because I would kiss you maybe twenty times a day. Sometimes in the middle of class._

_I keep all your voice memos. They automatically time to delete but I save them all._

_Thanks for talking to me about my dad. & yours. Normally I’d freak out that I told someone all that but not with you. _

_I read your letter again. Did I ever tell you I thought about that game of spin the bottle for months? I didn’t even really know why, but it just played in my head on a loop whenever I tried to go to sleep._

_We’re in different English sections but I feel like I can always guess within 5 minutes of class starting whether or not you’re going to fight Ms. Lopez about Shakespeare._

_You’re hot all the time but you wore those heart-shaped sunglasses today & I almost choked on my fruit snacks when you walked into class. _

_I’m 95% sure you don’t read these, so I wanted to say that on Saturday, when Lou told me what habibi means, I swear my heart literally stopped & restarted & I couldn’t believe it didn’t wake you up. _

_You have a cute butt._

_Your little sister thinks you’re so cool. It’s adorable. Don’t tell her I told you._ (This one, he reads aloud.)

 _Connor Whisk came out to me today. He said it was okay if you knew. He never would have told me that before this semester, so thank you._ (This one, he does not.)

_Yesterday was sort of shitty. My favorite part was arguing about Thor with you on the way home._

_Lardo decided you’re my good luck charm. So now you have to come to the games for her!! Suck it!!_

_I know it’s not fake for me. Sometimes you look at me & I think it’s not fake for you either. Maybe that’s stupid. I cannot decide if I want you to read these or not. _

_Ransom wanted me to tell you that your calves are godly. I told him to get his own boyfriend. Is that weird?_

_I saw that you were the one who got the only 100 on the midterm. I know you don’t really want people to make a big deal out of things, but good job. You should be proud._

_When you’re telling a story, even one I was there for, the way you describe things makes me feel like I’m watching a movie of your life. It’s kind of amazing._

_My dad heard that I’m gay from my cousin Angie & he didn’t try to talk to me about it but I heard my mom on the phone with him earlier & she told him to kiss her ass :D _

_Short list of things I like about you: laugh. Opinions on Oreo flavors. Inability to actually hold onto the pens you’re always playing with in class. Your face when you pretend to be mad when I hand them back._

_You told me you’re getting a haircut after school today & I have to say I will miss that one curl that always stuck out a little higher than the others right on the top of your head. _

_I’m allergic to pineapple. It’s not important at all, but I just kind of want you to know everything about me._

The last one is folded up tiny, in eighths. “ _Remember how you told me that your crushes felt like something lifting in your chest?_ ” Derek reads. “ _Well, I like you so much, sometimes I feel like I’m going to fly off into space._ ”

Then they all sit in silence for a moment. Finally, Chris reaches out and closes the now-empty cigar box, and he says, “If it’s still too scary to think about, then don’t think about it. Just go.”

“Yeah, okay,” Derek says, nodding as if to convince himself.

He stands up from the couch and looks around for his keys.

_Okay._


	30. no rules

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys!!!! you guys. this fic is my child, and she is finally all grown up. it has been a pleasure to be on this journey with you. i love u all. (lmk if u want any bonus content.)
> 
> without further ado: The End

**_Nursey_ **

odds either of u can tell me where will is rn

**_Holster_ **

uhhhh prolly working out bc club season is starting & he’s a nerd

**_Ransom_ **

RT ^^

Try the track I think it’s cardio day

**_Nursey_ **

Thx

**_Holster_ **

so what do we think this means??

👀👀👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨??

**_Ransom_ **

Dude not in the group chat 

 

The sky is an overcast, numbing white, and it’s just about freezing as Derek strides out of the front door toward his car. He flips his key in and out like a switchblade a couple of times, stamping directly over the snowy yard, trying to channel his best Mr.-Darcy-crossing-the-field. Every star-crossed lover in every book he’s ever read pushes at his back like a gust of wind, all the pirates and the vikings and the firefighters whispering:  _ finally. Finally he gets it. _ His subconscious picks a soundtrack for him, some swelling orchestra number like they play right as the hero decides to take charge of his destiny, dramatically quit his job, and solve all of his problems by kissing Meg Ryan.

Things are never quite that simple. But Derek lets the wave carry him.

Open the door, sit down, turn the key, listen to the hesitant coughs of the engine as if it’s giving Derek time to back out of driving. “Come on,” he says, turning the key a second time. “Let’s go.”

He’s still in his pajamas and his glasses and his mom’s aqua peacoat because it was the only one on the rack by the door, and his hands are shaking a little bit as he buckles the seatbelt. His hair almost certainly looks a mess.

So be it, he thinks, glancing in the rearview mirror.

The engine finally catches.

In for three, out for five.

He shifts out of park-- in, out-- and drives.

 

The school is swathed in a rare windless silence. It’s as abandoned as you’d expect on a Saturday morning, parking lot empty but for a cluster of cars abandoned by swimmers on their way to an away meet, a few sedans next to the teacher’s entrance, and one single pickup truck. Blue and white. Gleaming except for where midwestern-gray slush has gathered around the wheel wells. The violins swell; jackpot.

Derek’s heart rate spikes.

Then everything stops.

Suddenly, all he can hear is his own stuttering breath. There is no movie soundtrack. There is no voiceover of all those sweet notes from Will, no hair and makeup department, no camera panning across as the hero swings out of the car with confidence and full control of all of his limbs. It’s just Derek: a clumsy kid with ratty sweatpants and crooked gold glasses and a huge, dumb crush encouraging his stomach to eat itself.

He scrunches his eyes shut as he pulls the keys from the ignition.

It’s not going to feel like a big movie moment, he thinks. This is not one of his thousand fantasy worlds, one that he can rewind and adjust and start over until it’s perfect. This is the one where he might fuck up really badly, but also the one where he might-- if he’s very lucky-- get to kiss Will Poindexter again.

_ It doesn’t mean you do everything perfectly, _ he reminds himself.  _ It means you try. _

 

He finds Will doing stair sprints on the bleachers as the clouds get a little thinner. At first, he just watches: the orange hair bouncing, the lean face looking severe and laser-focused. Despite the fact that it’s thirty degrees, Will’s windbreaker is tied around his waist. Derek shoves his hands in his coat pockets and waits.

Will reaches the top of the bleachers, puts his hands on his waist to take a breath, and turns around.

He doesn’t notice Derek until he’s a few steps down; Derek can tell because all of a sudden the hard planes of his face disappear into something younger, more open, more-- hopeful, maybe. He slows to a halt on the landing between the first and second set of seats. “Hey, Messi,” Derek calls.

Will gives him a little half-smile that makes his heart play marimba on his ribs. “You referring to the player or my running form?” he replies.

“Your hair,” Derek says, and Will laughs.

The sun is a little brighter now, and Derek looks down at the ground as he clears his throat, unsure what to say next. At once, he and Will both say, “I wanted to talk to you about--,” fall silent, and go pink.

Derek feels like his knees are going to give out. “You know what, I don’t want to interrupt,” he says. “You’re obviously b--”

“Interrupt!” Will blurts. His lips pinch. “Please.”

The steps up to the first level of the bleachers are slippery with melting ice, and Derek holds onto the handle with white knuckles as he climbs up and walks to the bottom of the staircase where Will’s gym bag is. Neither of them make a move to get any closer, Derek with his back to the soccer field, Will several flights of stairs above him. The sun is a little stronger now, and the entire structure is a brilliant silver that makes Derek squint.

“I like your glasses,” Will offers.

“Thanks,” Derek says. “Uh, I drove here.”

That prompts the first full Poindexter smile of the morning, and Derek grins back on instinct. “Really?” Will says. “That’s great.”

They look each other over for another blank second, Derek bouncing on his toes to work up momentum that never appears. _ Just start just start just start, _ his brain says, and Will is standing there with his face all open, but he can’t make anything come out. After a minute, Derek sighs. “Can you say your thing first?”

Will’s brows furrow a little, but he says, “Yeah, sure. Um, AdamandJustin found out it was one of the sophomores from the lax team that took that video and put it up. They say they’re going to TP his house, but I told them not to, but like, who knows. So there’s that.”

When Derek doesn’t respond, Will scuffs his sneaker along the ridges on the metal floor. “Your turn.”

Derek takes one last breath-- three, five-- and it shakes just a little as it comes out. “Sorry, this is just-- scary,” he says, looking up to meet Will’s eyes again. “I’m terrified to tell you any of this, but I also really, really want to, so give me a second.”

Will does. He looks solid, trustworthy

“You surprise me a lot,” Derek admits after a beat, voice stronger. “I was going to write all of this down, actually, but I realized that that’s not how I work when I’m around you. I’d think I wanted to say one thing and I’d show up and the words wouldn’t be right at all, so this is not at all prepared or packaged but I promise it’s true: I like you, Will Poindexter.”

And the soft expression on Will’s face crests into another smile, one as bright as the aluminum steps he’s standing on. Every nerve in Derek’s body begins singing with the sheer possibility implied in that smile.

Will starts down the stairs.

“I like that you’re generous and you have great manners,” Derek says as Will comes another two steps closer. “I like how you talk to my little sister like she’s a grown-up. I like your dimples and your shoulders and your hair. I like how cool you look when you do dumb stuff like get out of your truck or fix your hair after you take off a hat, but I also like making you blush and forget how to talk. I like how you treat your friends and how you’re willing to embarrass yourself if it means someone else isn’t sad.” Will is only a handful of feet away from him now, halfway down that last flight of stairs, and Derek takes one last steadying breath and holds his gaze for a few quiet seconds.

“I like you more than I think I’ve ever liked anybody, and I want to be your real boyfriend. No rules.”

He pushes off from the fence, standing as tall as he can, as Will finally steps off the last stair. The sun skips red-gold off Will’s flyaway hairs. They are exactly the same height. “So that’s how I feel,” Derek finishes. “How do you feel?”

Will glances away briefly, squinting into the sun, and his left dimple appears as one side of his mouth quirks up. “Well,” he says, as if it’s easy. “I’m in love with you.”

As if it’s the simplest thing in the world.

Derek leans forward, one hand on Will’s waist, and kisses him.

God, but it’s a relief not to hold back any part of enjoying this. Will smells like cold air and Old Spice, and he cups Derek’s jaw gently, and Derek’s heart is somewhere between them whooping as it rolls down a steep hill. It’s one long, sweet press of their lips together, and then Derek pulls back to steady himself on the chain-link fence.

When he does, Will stays comically frozen, hands hovering in front of his face. His eyebrows are ticked up into almost perfect half-circles. Derek, pleased once again by his ability to throw Will Poindexter off his game, pulls his hands down to lace their fingers together.

“You were right about the no-kissing rule,” he says, trying to deflect attention from how wobbly his knees are. “It was the dumbest idea I’ve ever had.”

After a second, he can see Will’s brain kick back online. “You read my notes?” he asks, and Derek can see from the way his cheeks tighten up that he’s trying not to smile.

Derek nods. “I loved them.”

“I hoped you would,” Will replies. “I put a lot of work into those.”

Derek tugs on his hand, and Will stumbles a step closer, balancing against the top of the fence with his other hand. “Why, Sexy Dexy,” Derek says, letting a slow smile sprawl across his face. “Were you trying to charm me this entire time?”

Will nose is bright red. “I’ve been trying to charm you since middle school,” he says, utterly failing to sound crabby. “Did it work?”

Derek just nods and pulls him back in.

He is lit up from inside, and he might be in love with Will Poindexter, and strictly speaking they are very near a sunlit field-- covered in astroturf instead of flowers, but a field nonetheless. So maybe sometimes the big movie moments do happen. Sometimes the magic trickles over to a small corner of real life.

Or maybe, Derek thinks as he grins into their fifth or twelfth or thirty-seventh kiss, maybe this is the magic in its purest form, and the movies are just trying to catch up.


End file.
